Comparing "better" and "best" [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate:
Use of the superlative when only two items are present

Is the word better used in comparing two things, or do you use the word best?

Example used in a conversation:

A: Is there any way to get over the anxiety?

B: Drink a shit ton of alcohol or caffeine.

A: I like the first suggestion better/best.

Are they both correct to say?

Usually, when there are two options, one of them is better than the other. If there are multiple options, you can choose the best among them. I think the underlying reason for this is that when there are only two options, the better of them is also the best.

Who's better at math: Beth or Seth? Seth's better. He's the best in class.

I think this is true for all adjectives. Imagine there are two boxes. Someone asks you which one you want. You say:

I want the larger one.

On the other hand, if there were 10 boxes, you could say

I want the largest one.

Although technically you could say I want the largest one in the first scenario, don't be surprised if the other person starts looking around to see if there aren't any other boxes apart from these two.

When you use best, you say it in absolute terms. While better is used in relative terms.

When something is best, its position is uncontested. While better suggests 'compared to others, this is one is good'

"Better" is a comparative, i.e. it is a relationship between two things. "Best" is a superlative, i.e. it states the position of this one thing compared to all the other things under discussion.

If I have three choices, A, B, and C, all the following statements could be true: A is better than B. B is better than C. A is better than C. A is the best. If one thing is better than another, others could be better still. But if one thing is the best, than nothing can be better.

Note: The above assumes that "better" is a rating on some sort of scale. Of course A might be better than B in some contexts but not as good in others, for example an orange is better than a flashlight if I'm hungry but the flashlight is better if I'm stumbling in the dark. And one can imagine relationships like rock/paper/scissors where there is no best, just pairs of non-transitive relationships.