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Nous ne ménageons pas nos efforts pour fournir à nos clients les fruits et les légumes les plus frais qui soient.

I wonder if you add « qui soit/soient » to the superlative only when you are boasting of its quality. If so, I imagine that it wouldn’t make sense to use this expression with an adjective with a negative connotation, as in « le plus mauvais qui soit ».

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    It's the same as in English: the worst there is. Your question is in English, so I'm guessing you are familiar with this usage in English.
    – Drew
    Dec 22, 2016 at 1:25
  • Je serais curieuse de savoir quelle méthode de langue tu utilises, c'est impressionnant cette maîtrise de la langue pour quelqu'un qui vient de commencer le français.
    – Quidam
    Dec 22, 2016 at 4:56
  • @PERCE-NEIGE Ça fait plusieurs années qu'elle étudie le français... Qu'est-ce qui te fait croire qu'elle vient de commencer ? Il lui arrive même de dire des choses comme "en 3 ans j'ai jamais entendu cette expression, pourtant on me dit que c'est très courant". Dec 22, 2016 at 9:38
  • Pas Drew, elle n'a rien dit en français. C'est Ah alone-zee qui parle d'une méthode de langue.
    – Quidam
    Dec 22, 2016 at 10:20
  • @TeleportingGoat Hi. Colour me confused! Because I don't recall ever saying "learning for 3 years", or anything to that effect... Perhaps, you misread some of my past comments? Anyway, I've been learning French exactly as long as I've been on this site: 7 months now. One year ago, "an, do, toewa" were just about the only French words I knew! :) Dec 22, 2016 at 10:29

3 Answers 3

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Qui soi(ent) = that exist, existing in the world, qui exist(ent).

Un peu comme l'usage de "ever" en Anglais, on a un renforcement du sens:

It's the worst book. It's the worst book ever.

Je lui donne les plus beaux légumes.
Je lui donne les plus beaux légumes qui soient.

On a en plus du renforcement de sens, une certaine amélioration "esthétique" de la phrase. Elle est un peu plus littéraire que si on avait ajouté "du monde", ou autre.

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It would be grammatically correct, but the sentence would have an unusual meaning: why would they get the worst possible produce?

Instead, you can say

Ils vendent les légumes les plus mauvais qui soient.

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"qui soit" / "qui soient" = "that exist(s)"

It's basically the same usage as "ever". The full phrase corresponding to "ever" would be something like "that has/have ever existed", like:

They are selling the worst vegetables that have ever been grown.

In French, the full phrase would be "qui aient jamais existé", such as:

Ils vendent les pires légumes qui aient jamais existé.

Note that "jamais" is usually translated by "never" when talking about a frequency, but this is also the right way to translate "ever".

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