Badder

Question

I read a sentence in English Fairy Tales.The sentence is "So he sat down and the more he thought about it, the badder he felt".In this sentence, what is the meaning of 'badder'?

Tamguatlay · Accepted Answer

It means 'worse'.

'Badder' is informal, chiefly North American. (Oxford Dictionaries)

David Hatton · Answer

The word should be 'worse', as it is the comparative of 'bad'. However, sometimes people play with language and what we expect to read, so the author here may have used 'badder' to show the type of character who is being discussed - someone who uses such poor English, or slang expressions. Alternatively, it was just put there for fun!
The correct words are
bad - worse - worst
but we often hear 'baddest' used in street slang.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Anonymous "So he sat down and the more he thought about it, the badder he felt".

When children first learn English, they quickly learn regular patterns and not irregular ones. They learn that "-er" added to adjectives means "more ..."

tall, taller,
big, bigger
hot, hotter
high, higher
cold, colder
fast, faster

So kids will make mistakes and incorrectly make up words like "badder" and "littler." When a book is written from the point of view of a young child, the author might use these mistakes on purpose to make the story sound more authentic.

Badder

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