Is this correct?

It's fine. (Some might insist on a comma before and.)

CJ

Hesitant though I am to question California Jim, I would like this sentence better without "else":

This is the best, and nothing can replace it.

Including the "else" suggest to me that "it" could replace itself, whatever that would mean, but nothing else could.

Compare:

This is the best, and nothing else will do = This is the best, and nothing

khoffIncluding the "else" suggest to me that "it" could replace itself, whatever that would mean, but nothing else could.

Au contraire, the lack of else suggests that it could replace itself.

Thus, also,

This mountain is taller than any mountain in the world.

invites a comparison between this mountain and

Ouch. My head hurts. :-(

I'm not good enough to be an arbiter, but could I add a few scenarios for discussion purposes?

Let's say, my father gave me a vase. I love the vase very much, but my cat broke it yesterday. The vase is gone. In this case, will the following be correct?

Nothing (that exists) can replace that vase of mine.

Nothing (that exists) can repl

Oh dear. I was going to write what khoff wrote originally, before finding that Jim and khoff had already answerer, saying "remove the 'else'" but I saw there were responses and thought I couldn't have said it any better.

(I completely agree with the "taller than any other mountain" by the way.)

If you say "nothing else could replace it" it seems to me that you mean only

I don't think this is something to analyze using uber advanced grammar. I just take "else" to mean "other than something that should be implicit", and to me it often sounds like an intensifier.

Did you see Usain Bolt? No one else could do that. He's a ***.(No one but him. Even if you left "else" out, it would still be implicit, because "No one can do it", but Bolt is exclu

It's spellbound! How simple sentence can be so deceitful? I would step in carefully. 

To me, "else" shows the path for usin

Julie, that was inspired!

khoffMy point is that you don't want to imply that the thing can replace itself, because it can't -- unless you are deliberately trying to construct some kind of existential paradox.

Not deliberately, but per accidens. Here's my take on it. Our disagreement hinges on a difference between an emphasis on the meaning of "replace" and an emphasis on the m