Photo credit: Î’ethan
It is probably a well-known fact that it rains quite a bit over here, in the UK. So today my colleagues and I were looking out of the window as it was bucketing down and contemplated the possibility of getting rather wet on the way home. One of us suggested that if the worst comes to worst we could always hang around for another half an hour and have a coffee.
This is a useful expression for saying what you are going to do if the worst thing that could potentially happen does actually happen.
Some more examples:
– Hard-pressed euro-zone governments now know that, if the worst comes to the worst, they have somewhere to run (The Economist).
– Thanks to a well-regulated banking system and tighter public finances, Argentine officials are confident they can survive the current turbulence. If the worst comes to the worst, they might adopt the dollar instead of the peso (The Economist).
– “If the worst comes to the worst, the people in the UK will take to the streets and say ‘this is ridiculous’.” (The Guardian).
Confessions of the Linguistic Spy 