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grammaticality - Use of "The better"?


Disclamer: English isn't my first language.


I learned during my English courses (a few years ago), that there is, as in French (which is my first language), a comparative and superlative version for each adjective. And for the adjective good it goes like this:



good, better, best



The thing is, when I listen to different English people speaking (videos on YouTube, conferences, etc.) I often hear something like



the better solution is...



This doesn't translate well in French (actually, if you translate the word as is, it's a huge grammar error) and most of the time I thought it was just the speaker making a mistake (which could be considered as not that important in English). Instead I would expect either




  • the best solution is... [superlative]

  • a better solution is... [comparative]



and not the use of a comparative as a superlative.


But recently I've started to listen to a course from Shelly Kagan, a professor of philosophy in Yale University, who seems to use this same construction.


Now, I wonder if what I was taught wasn't completely correct and indeed "the better solution is..." is correct, or if professor Kagan, and everybody I heard saying that, is making a mistake (of course this doesn't affect the quality of the content or the skills of the speaker).


If it is indeed a mistake, is it considered as an obvious one, or is it not that noticeable?



Answer



Out of two alternatives, one is worse than the other and the other is better.


So given two solutions, one can be dismissed and the other declared to be "the better solution". It's perfectly grammatical.


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