2022-08-12 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน - Set – H – Hardly & scarcely & barely


Revision H

2022-08-12

ศัพท์ น่าสับสน - Set – H – Hardly & scarcely & barely

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Dictionary.com

ออกเสียง hardly = ‘HAHRD-lee’

ออกเสียง scarcely = ‘SKAIRS-lee’

ออกเสียง barely = ‘BAIR-lee

 

Dictionary of Problem Words and Expression

Hardly & scarcely & barely

These three adverbs imply 

         the doing or accomplishing of 

         something by the narrowest of margins:

         “The injured man was hardly (scarcely, barely) able to move his lips.”

What slightdifference exists among them 

        is that hardly suggests difficulty, the hardness of something

       (My lungs hurt so much that I could hardly breathe);

Scarcely suggests a margin so small as to be almost unbelievable

       (You would scarcely believe he could be so stupid);

and barely stresses the idea of narrowness and thinness.

       (He barely passed the examination).

All three words have a negative quality 

       and should not be used with anothernegative;

 

Dictionary.com

SYNONYM STUDY FOR HARDLY

Hardly, barely, scarcely

implynarrow margin by which 

         performance was, is, or will be achieved.

Hardly, though often interchangeable with scarcely and barely,

        usually emphasizes the idea of the difficulty involved:

       We could hardly endure the winter.

Barely emphasizes the narrowness of the 

       margin of safety, “only just and no more”:

       We barely succeeded.

Scarcely implies a very narrow margin

       below satisfactory performance:

       He can scarcely read.

 

Dictionary.com:

SYNONYM STUDY FOR HARD

Hard, difficult both describe something 

        resistant to one's efforts or one's endurance.

Hard is the general word: 

       hard times; 

       It was hard to endure the severe weather. 

Difficult means not easy, 

       and particularly denotes that 

       which requires special effort or skill: 

      a difficult task. 

Hard, callous, unfeeling, unsympathetic 

imply a lack of interest in, feeling for, 

        or sympathy with others. 

Hard implies insensibility, either natural or acquired, 

       so that the plight of others 

      makes no impression on one: 

      a hard taskmaster. 

Callous may mean the same or that one is himself 

      or herself insensitive to hurt as the result of 

      continued repression and indifference: 

      a callous answer; 

      callous to criticism. 

Unfeeling implies natural inability

     to feel with and for others: 

      an unfeeling and thoughtless remark. 

Unsympathetic implies an indifference that precludes 

     pity, compassion, or the like: 

     unsympathetic toward distress.

See firm

 

Dictionary.com:

USAGE NOTE FOR HARDLY

Hardly, barely, and scarcely

all have a negative connotation

and the use of any of them with a negative 

         like can't or couldn't 

        is often condemned as a double negative

       and thus considered nonstandard:

       I can't hardly wait.

Such constructions do occur occasionally 

      in the speech of educated persons,

      often with jocular intent 

      (You can't hardly get that kind any more )

      but are not found in formal speech or writing.

When hardly in the sense “only just, almost not” 

       is followed by a clause,

the usual word to introduce the clause is when:

       The telephone had hardly stopped ringing 

       when (not than ) the doorbell rang.

 

COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY

USAGE FOR HARDLY

Since hardly, scarcely, and barely 

            already have negative force,

it is redundant to use another negative in the same clause:

            “he had hardly had (not he hadn't hardly hadtime to think; 

            there was scarcely any (not scarcely nobread left”

           “there was scarcely any (not scarcely nobread left

           he had hardly had (not he hadn't hardly hadtime to think

 

Collins COBUILD English Usage

Hard – hardly

1. 'hard'

Hard can be an adjective

If something is hard, it is not easy to do.

           Coping with three babies is very hard work.

Hard can also be an adverb.

For example, if you work hard, you work with a lot of effort.

          Many elderly people have worked hard all their lives.

2. 'hardly'

Hardly is an adverb

It has a totally different meaning from hard.

           You use hardly to modify a statement 

          when you want to emphasize that 

          only a small amount or detail makes it true, 

          and it is best to consider the opposite as true.

For example, if someone hardly speaks, they do not speak much.

If something is hardly surprising, it is not very surprising.

          I hardly knew him.

          Nick hardly slept because he was so worried.

If you use an auxiliary verb or modal with hardly

         you put the auxiliary verb or modal first.

You say, for example, 'I can hardly see'.

Don't say 'I hardly can see'.

          Two years before, the wall had hardly existed.

          She can hardly wait to begin.

         We could hardly move.

Be Careful!
Don't use 'not' with hardly.

Don't say, for example, 'I did not hardly know him'.

Say 'I hardly knew him'.

Hardly is sometimes used in longer structures 

to say that one thing happened immediately after another.

             The local police had hardly finished their search when the detectives arrived.

Be Careful!
In structures like these you use when, not 'than'.

Don't say, for example, 

'The local police had hardly finished their search than the detectives arrived'.

In stories, 

           hardly is sometimes put at the beginning of a sentence, 

           followed by had or the verb be and the subject.

           Hardly had he uttered the words when he began laughing.

3. 'hardly ever'

If something hardly ever happens, it almost never happens.

          I hardly ever spoke to them.

         Tim hardly ever met her friends.

 

Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree

barely

hardly;  = only just; almost not:

           She barely made it to work on time.;

scantily: = She’s barely clothed.; sparsely

Not to be confused with:

barley = a grain used as food and in making beer, ale, and whiskey

 

Collins COBUILD English Usage

Bare & barely

1. 'bare'

Bare is an adjective

If something is bare, it is not covered or decorated with anything.

             The room has bare wooden floors.

            If a part of the body is bare, it has no clothing.

            Meg's feet were bare.

2. 'barely'

Barely is an adverb. 

It has a totally different meaning from bare.

You use barely to say that something is only just true or possible.

For example, 

if you can barely do something, you can only just do it.

If something is barely noticeable, you can only just notice it.

             It was so dark we could barely see.

            His whisper was barely audible.

Be Careful!
Don't use 'not' with barely.

Don't say, for example, 

'The temperature was not barely above freezing'.

You say 

'The temperature was barely above freezing'.

Be Careful!
If you use an auxiliary verb or modal with barely,

you put the auxiliary verb or modal first.

You say, for example, 

'He can barely read'. 

Don't say 'He barely can read'.

            The audience could barely hear him.

            You can use barely to say that one thing happened 

            immediately after another.

For example, you can say 'We had barely started the meal when Jane arrived'.

Be Careful!
You use when or before after barely.

Don't use 'than'.

Don't say, for example, 

'We had barely started the meal than Jane arrived'.

           I had barely arrived before he led me to the interview room.

          They had barely sat down when they were told to leave.

 

Collins COBUILD English Usage
scarce & scarcely

Both scarce and scarcely are fairly formal words.

They have completely different meanings.

1. 'scarce'

Scarce is an adjective

If something is scarce, very little of it is available.

          Good quality land is scarce.

         The desert is a place where water is scarce.

2. 'rare'

Don't use 'scarce' to say that something is not common, 

and is therefore interesting. Use rare.

         This flower is so rare that few botanists have ever seen it.

         Deepak's hobby is collecting rare books.

3. 'scarcely'

Scarcely is an adverb that means the same as 'hardly'.

If something is scarcely true, it is almost not true.

        If something scarcely exists, it almost does not exist.

       The smell was so bad I could scarcely bear it.

       The woman was scarcely able to walk.

Be Careful!
Don't use 'not' with scarcely.

Don't say, for example, 'I do not scarcely have enough money to live'.

Say 'I scarcely have enough money to live'.

If you use an auxiliary verb or modal with scarcely,

put the auxiliary verb or modal first.

Say, for example, 'I could scarcely stand'.

Don't say 'I scarcely could stand'.

         I can scarcely remember what we ate.

         He could scarcely be blamed for his reaction.

Scarcely is sometimes used to emphasize that 

         one thing happened immediately after another.

         We had scarcely arrived when it was time to leave again.

Be Careful!
Use when, not 'than', in sentences like these.

Don't say, for example, 'We had scarcely arrived than it was time to leave again'.

In literary writing, 

         scarcely is sometimes put at the beginning of a sentence, 

        followed by had or the verb be and the subject.

        Scarcely had she put down the receiver when the phone rang again.

        Scarcely were the words spoken when he began to regret them.

 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary ok

Usage Guide

Can hardly be used with a negative?:

Hardly in sense 5 is 

         used sometimes with not for emphasis.

        just another day at the office? 

       Not hardly In sense 4b 

       with a negative verb

       (such as can't, wouldn't, didn't)

 

it does not make a double negative but softens the negative.

          In "you can't hardly find a red one," 

          the sense is that you can find a red one, 

         but only with difficulty

        in "you can't find a red one," 

        the sense is that red ones are simply not available.

 

Use of hardly with a negative verb is a speech form

it is most commonly heard in Southern and Midland speech areas.

 

In other speech areas and in all discursive prose, 

hardly is normally used with a positive. 

you can hardly find a red one

 

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 

hardly, scarcely,

Usage Note:

In Standard English,

hardly, scarcely, and similar adverbs cannot be used with a negative.

          The sentence I couldn't hardly see him, for instance

          is not acceptable.

This violation of the double negative rule 

         is curious because these adverbs 

         are not truly negative in meaning.

Rather, they minimize the state or event they describe.

 

Thus hardly means "almost not at all," 

           rarely means "practically never," and so forth.

 

The sentence Mary hardly laughed 

          means that Mary did laugh a little, 

          not that she kept from laughing altogether, 

         and therefore does not express a negative proposition.

 

But adverbs like hardly and scarcely 

        do share some important features of negative adverbs

        even though they may not have purely negative meaning.

 

For one thing,

          they combine with any and at all, 

          which are characteristically associated with negative contexts.

Thus we say I hardly saw him at all or I never saw him at all 

           but not I occasionally saw him at all.

Similarly, we say I hardly had any time or I didn't have any time

           but not I had any time and so on.

Like other negative adverbs

          hardly triggers inversion of the subject and auxiliary verb 

          when it begins a sentence.

Thus we say Hardly had I arrived when she left 

          on the pattern of Never have I read such a book. ·

Hardly and other minimizing adverbs 

         are properly followed by when and not than

in sentences like 

         I had hardly walked inside [when/than] it began to rain.

 

In our 2008 survey, 79 percent of the Usage Panel rejected 

the use of than in the previous sentence. 

See Usage Notes at double negativerarelyscarcely.

 

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language ok

Scarcely

Usage Note:

Scarcely has the force of a negative and is 

         therefore regarded as 

         incorrectly used with another negative,

         as in I couldn't scarcely believe it. ·

 

A clause following scarcely is 

          properly introduced by when or before

         the use of than is usually changed by copyeditors:

         The meeting had scarcely begun when 

         (or before but not thanit was interrupted.

 

Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary,

synhardlybarelyscarcely 

imply a narrow margin of sufficiency.

 

hardly usu. emphasizes the difficulty or sacrifice involved:

            We could hardly endure the winter.

barely implies no more than the minimum

          as in performance or quantity:

         We barely succeeded.

scarcely implies an even narrower margin

         usu. below a satisfactory level:

         He can scarcely read.

 

usage: hardly, barely, scarcely 

           all have a negative connotation,

           and the use of any of them with a supplementary negative 

          (I can't hardly remember) is characteristic of

           dialectical or informal speech rather than edited writing.

 

Common Errors in English Usage Dictionary

hardly

When Bill says “I can’t hardly bend over with this backache,” 

he means he can hardly bend over, and that’s what he should say.

 

Similarly, 

when Jane says “you can feed the cat without hardly bending over” 

she means “almost without bending over.”

 

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