Superlative Adverbs and Adjectives Dear Other English Natives, A student just brought this question to me: In which of the following sentences can the word "the" be removed? David runs the fastest. This box is the heaviest of them all. English is the easiest subject for me. I am the funniest boy in my class. Today is the coldest day of the month. The answer, I said, is the first sentence. I explained it as follows: 'Fastest' can be either a superlative adjective or superlative adverb. In that sentence, you can describe the unlisted group, like "David runs the fastest in his class." In that case, you would have to use the superlative adjective just like the other sentences. However, since the sentence simply says, "David runs the fastest." you can drop 'the' and make it, "David runs fastest.", at which point you are using the superlative adverb to describe 'how' David runs. Problem is, I'm not 100% sure that I'm correct. The English questions my students face are extremely difficult, sometimes even for me.