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I'm watching documentary about vets. And one vet talked about using tube to dehydrated animal. and she said this.

It's the safest way to get the fluids into her the quickest.

and I don't understand exactly what it means.

  1. This is the safest way AND the quickest way
  2. Give her fluids fast, that is the safest way
  3. The safest way is the quickest way

Which is it? When I think about 'the more the merrier', should it be number 3?

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    i would rephrase it as "it is the safest way to give fluids quickly", this isn't on your list
    – flumperious
    Commented May 15, 2021 at 11:54
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    [the] quickest there (the article is optional) is just an adverbial element precisely equivalent to as quickly as possible. It looks a bit clunky in the written form, but in practice that would hardly be noticed in a conversational context.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented May 15, 2021 at 12:29
  • @FumbleFingers Did you mean "It's the safest way to get the fluids into her (the) quickest."? Where "(the)" is optional?
    – Man_From_India
    Commented May 15, 2021 at 13:05

3 Answers 3

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This is rather informal speech and probably not what you would write in a formal essay. I would agree with the suggestion to use "quickly" instead of "the quickest."

The meaning is between to your versions 1 and 2. It means that using the tube is the quickest way to get fluids into the animal while being safe about it. The construction allows that there may be an even quicker way, but that way is not safe; if we want to be safe about it, the tube is the quickest. (It also could be as you say, this is the quickest way and it is the safest way. But not necessarily.)

I see how you might connect this construction with "the more, the merrier." But if you expand that saying out, it means "the more people there are, the merrier the situation is." What the vet is saying here is different.

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"the quickest" plays an adverbial role, it means "quickly", "rapidly", "at a fast speed".

The treatment they are talking about is the safest among the quickest options. The objective seems to be to hydrate the animal as quickly and as safely as possible.

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I think you have no problem with this:

It's the safest way to get the fluids into her.

Now you want to add the manner by which to get the fluid into her. So you need a Manner Adjunct there, which can be realised either by a Noun Phrase (NP) or by a Preposition Phrase (PP).

The manner adjunct that is realised by a PP is - in the quickest way.
The manner adjunct that is realised by a NP is - the quickest way.

So both versions are correct -

It's the safest way to get the fluids into her in the quickest way.
It's the safest way to get the fluids into her the quickest way.

And they both mean the same thing.

Now we can reduce the above NP further by means of FUSION, and we get this - the quickest - where the internal dependent is combined with the head noun.

It's the safest way to get the fluids into her the quickest.

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