negation - Which is right, "worst nightmare" or "best nightmare"?


When we refer to the most negative dream, we say it as worst nightmare. Since that nightmare is negative, does that mean that the meaning of the worst nightmare is the least negative of all nightmares?


If so, does the phrase best nightmare mean the best negative dream or simply the worst nightmare?


Is it right to use a negative adjective (worst) in its superlative form to describe the level of the negative term? Is my reasoning right?




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

commas - Does this sentence have too many subjunctives?

verbs - "Baby is creeping" vs. "baby is crawling" in AmE

time - English notation for hour, minutes and seconds

etymology - Origin of "s--t eating grin"

grammatical number - Use of lone apostrophe for plural?

etymology - Where does the phrase "doctored" originate?

single word requests - What do you call hypothetical inhabitants living on the Moon?