Community Chat

[Nomorebirthdays]

@suzyQ3. Thank you. 

[deepwaterdotter]

A phrase that just sounds 'off' to me is "Take a listen."  Newsreaders often say this just before the airing of a sound bite.  I would prefer "Here's ______ to explain".

[sfnative]

If a professor of rhetoric read this in a paper submitted by a student, "almost exactly" would have been red-lined.  No such thing.

There is "almost" and there is "exactly."  There is NO "almost exactly."

[YorkieonmyPillow]

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@Nomorebirthdays wrote:

I just read an article from a journalist from NBC. 

He writes suspect wrote in a journal " almost exactly" two weeks after such and such. 

What is almost exactly? 13 days or 14 days.

I certainly am not a writer or journalist but I see errors frequently, I expect more from professionals.

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Agree with you.

[dooBdoo]

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suzyQ3 wrote:

@Nomorebirthdays, what you stumbled upon is one of the trickiest issues that I had to teach to my students who needed very strong language skills to become court reporters.

The adjective "exact" and the adverb form "exactly" is what is called an absolute. In other words, it cannot logically be compared or qualified. In the same way that you can't be "almost pregnant," you can't qualify "exact" or "exactly."

Some absolutes are the words square, perfect, never, always, dead, and the one most misused -- unique.

I hated teaching this as much as my students disliked learning it.  They loved trying to convince me that, yes, you could be a little pregnant or almost dead.

I had to teach them that if they insisted on qualifying an absolute, they should use the word "nearly," as in "That man is nearly perfect." In this sense, the modifier only comes close to the absolute word.

EDT: You have a keen eye, @Nomorebirthdays

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          Thanks for this reminder, @suzyQ3.    I would add the observation that we seem to see more errors online than we saw in hard copy text in the past.    I believe there's less proofreading and editing now.   There's too much demand to fill the websites with new content.

[Isobel Archer]

Personally, I'd prefer journalist to present facts not sylistic renderings of prose.

If he said "almost exactly" then he must have known the actual date of the posting since if he didn't, he's basically making up the story.  So please just post the date and I can draw my own conclusions.

[Vivian]

Don't forget that our founding fathers wrote about a "more perfect" union.

[Judaline]

I just got back from the grocery and I heard a lady there say, (talking to her mother), "Didja getcha some apples?" Oh, boy, almost said something but kept my thoughts intact.

[aggravated]

Misnomer?

[LilacTree]

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@Judaline wrote:

I just got back from the grocery and I heard a lady there say, (talking to her mother), "Didja getcha some apples?" Oh, boy, almost said something but kept my thoughts intact.

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@Judaline

That's more of a colloquialism rather than poor grammar.  It's an informal way of speaking usually indigenous to a certain area, or just a shortcut.  Much like "jeet yet?"

I've always remembered when I had one of my babies, my roommate caught me yawning, and remarked that I was "gaping."  I realized what she meant, she used many odd words.  However, I always got her gist, and she was a sweet girl.