Error on the development plan web page?

[David Carlton]

On Thu, 7 Nov 2002 08:36:16 -0800 (PST), Joe Buck <jbuck@synopsys.com> said:

> [ absolute worst case ]
>> > BTW, should it read "absolutely" in the sentence above? (This was not
>> > touched by your patch, but I just noticed it as part of the diff.)

> Phil writes:
>> I don't think so.  It's modifying "case" which is a noun, so we need the
>> adjective form, not the adverb form.

> I hate to get into a grammar discussion, but this is incorrect: it's
> modifying "worst" which is an adjective.  We write "totally cool"
> in English, not "total cool".

I'm not sure it's quite that simple.  It seems to me that, in some
circumstances, you might want either of those forms: a "totally cool
cat" is a cat that is totally cool, where a "total cool cat" is
something that exemplifies everything that makes up being a cool cat.

So here, it's either a case that is absolutely worst, or a worst case
that is absolute.  I think the latter is appropriate here, treating
"worst case" as a noun being modified by "absolute".  (Whereas a
lawyer complaining about a particularly annoying trial might describe
it as her "absolutely worst case ever".)

David Carlton
carlton@math.stanford.edu