"Fare worst" or "fare the worst"?

Question

If you need an example, you can use this one or make your own one, it doesn't matter.

A hurricane hit the Atlantic coast. Florida fared (the) worst with estimated damages of more than $50 billion.

There's no point in an article there. None! Articles are linked to a noun (apart from cases like 'the rich', 'the poor', etc. where it makes collective nouns). Is there a noun? None! And yet, there are more search results in Google News for the second option (though still only several thousand). What I want to figure out is which option complies with the grammar rules: putting the article between 'fare' and 'worst' or not doing so? Please give a satisfactory and convincing explanation if it's the former option (I see no point in using 'the', really). As I understand it, 'worst' here modifies the verb 'fare'. The part of speech that modifies verbs is the adverb. Whether superlative adverbs take 'the' or not is unclear for me. On the one hand, in the Longman dictionary, I see this. Note that it's not classified as an idiom.

You know him best – you should ask him.

(from here)

On the other hand, on the ef.com I see this:

Everyone in the race ran fast, but John ran the fastest of all.

He played the best of any player.

(from here)

Now, the question is, why the ef is it so? Is it because of 'of all' and 'of any player' respectively? But in the Longman example, 'of all' is also implied.

Answer 1

When you use the definite article the it should be to single something out as specific among similar peers. The car, for example, would be a specific car - perhaps your car - and it singles it out from among other cars.

When you are talking about something being the best, it is, therefore, being singled out as such from among other things.

You can say that something or someone "fares" a certain way in comparison to themselves and not others. In such a context, "the" would be redundant, for example:

Companies fare best when they have a business plan.

This is not comparing one company to another - it is saying that a company - any company - can perform better if they have a plan, than if they don't.

It is when you are comparing how something or someone fares to others that the definite article may be necessary, for example:

'Company A' fared the best out all the companies we studied because they had a business plan.

'Company A' is a *specific' company, and it is the best of a group of companies studied.

In your example then, Florida fared the worst of all the states affected by the hurricane.

There are clearly some cases where either are idiomatic, but you've asked why it would be one or the other, so I've focused my answer on that. It might be worth you running a few examples through Google Ngrams to see which are used, which are not. For example, "fared the worst" and "fared worst" have both been used pretty evenly over time; whereas "knew him best" appears to the only idiomatic option.

Answer 2

This is a superlative adjective: the worst, the best, the funniest.

Superlatives always take the article. There is every point to an article in "Who fared the worst? To fare badly, To fare worse than some other city, to fare the worst of all the cities hit by the storm!

And with fare, one can say it's adverbial or used adverbially to modify the verb fare.

superlative adjectives

Farewell! :) [a joke, but true]

Answer 3

To me, it's a matter of using the definite article "the" with the superlative "the worst".

Tampa fared poorly in the storm, but Miami fared the worst. 

Answer 4

A superlative adjective always come after "the".

Noun (subject) + verb + the + superlative adjective + noun (object).

• Bobby talks the loudest of all the boys.
• Jill danced the best.
• Jack’s bullfrog jumped the highest.

Check out this article for more useful information.

But with superlative adverbs, we can also choose to use 'the' or 'no article':

• Luke reads (the) fastest.

• I like vanilla ice cream (the) best.

• She can speak six languages, but she speaks Spanish (the) most confidently.

So:

- Florida fared (the) worst.

However there are other articles suggesting that sometimes we compare a person or thing in one situation with the same person or thing in a different situation. In this case, when the superlative adjective or adverb is later in the sentence, we usually don't use 'the'. Compare these two sentences:

• I'm most productive early in the morning [I'm more productive in the morning than I am in the afternoon or the evening].

• I'm the most productive early in the morning [I'm more productive than the other people in my office first thing in the morning].