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Neither would I.
" I could hardly / scarcely understand a word he was saying ~ Nor could
your parents.
" Neither Henry nor Harry is / are coming to Edward's party. ~ I'm not
either.
" They occasionally eat lunch at 'The Blue Parrot'.
~ So does Tom. / Tom does too.
" I sometimes have to work at weekends to get everything done ~ So do we.
/ We do too.
" I go to the cinema quite often - twice a week usually.
~ Me too. / So do I.
" She always uses olive oil in her cooking
~ So do my Spanish friends / My Spanish friends do too.
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Note that the expressions Me too and Me neither, both of which are used in very
informal speech, can only be used with first person singular agreement:
" Look, it's already two o' clock and I haven't done any work today. ~ Me
neither.
" I'm so tired I could sleep for twelve hours. ~ Me too.
hardly, hardly ever, hardly any
Pual from Thailand writes:
I've learned that the words hardly and rarely have the same meaning and that
moreover we can use these words interchangeably in any sentence. Is this right or
wrong?
They are not quite interchangeable as they stand, but need some modification first of
all. If we add ever to hardly to arrive at hardly ever, then this is synonymous with
rarely and also with seldom.
hardly ever
These adverbs describe how frequently or regularly something happens. Thus along
a spectrum of frequency, starting with most frequent and ending with least frequent,
we might find the following:
" Well doctor& . I always have two meat rolls for breakfast. Without fail. Every
day.
" I usually have poached eggs on toast at the weekend.
Not every weekend. But most weekends.
" I often / frequently have two chocolate biscuits or a pastry with my
morning coffee. Not every day. But most days, I have to confess.
" And I sometimes have a brandy with my coffee after
lunch. After a particularly good lunch.
" I hardly ever / rarely / seldom eat a full English
breakfast. Once every two months perhaps.
" I never drink coffee after 7 p.m. Always tea. So what do you think is
causing the high blood pressure?
Note that hardly ever, rarely and seldom equate with occasionally or very
occasionally in terms of frequency, but that when you use hardly ever, etc, you are
putting a negative gloss on what you are saying. Occasionally sounds much more
positive. Compare the following:
" I occasionally see my daughter when I'm up in London. If she's free, around
lunchtime.
" I hardly ever see my daughter. She's far too busy to find time for me.
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hardly
Hardly, as an adverb by itself, means only just, and equates with barely and
scarcely.
" Jonathan could hardly walk but already knew how to swim.
" I barely / hardly / scarcely knew Jack, although I know he was a great
friend of John's.
" We had barely / hardly / scarcely finished dinner when they arrived.
hardly + any (+ -one/-thing)
Hardly any means very little or very few and is the opposite of plenty of, or
colloquially, loads of. Note again the negative tone in which it is used:
" I've got plenty of friends, but hardly any money.
" I knew hardly anybody at the party, but Katie knew loads of people, nearly
everybody in fact.
" It's worth hardly anything - practically nothing! Just a few pounds, perhaps.
" He's hardly said anything to anybody since the accident.
" He's said hardly anything to anybody since the accident.
'Incredible' and 'unbelievable'
Irene Cordoba from Brazil asks:
I recently found the Learning English section of the BBC webpage (which was such a
delight for me because I really love the language) and I was wondering if you could
tell me the difference between incredible and unbelievable and the right uses of
each of them.
These two adjectives, incredible and unbelievable, are quite interchangeable and
to these two you could add a third: unimaginable.
They all describe things or events which are so amazing that they cannot be
imagined or believed.
Adverbial forms are incredibly, unbelievably and unimaginably.
You can substitute any of these adjectives or adverbs under discussion as you wish:
" 'When she died, Aunt Isobel left me an incredible amount of money so
much I didn t know what to do with it!'
" 'I intend to work incredibly hard over the summer so that I pass my exams in
September.'
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" 'My performance at the Christmas concert was unbelievably bad.'
" 'The weather on the mountain yesterday was unbelievable. There was no
chance of us getting to the top.'
" 'The operation was performed under almost unimaginable conditions. It is
unbelievable that he survived.'
" 'The new computer game was unimaginably difficult. Neither Mike nor I could
work out how to progress from level 1 to level 2.'
Inversion after negative expressions and 'only...'
Jana from The Czech Republic asks:
I have tried to learn English via the BBC, which is great! I like your Quiznet, but I
need an explanation for the fifth item of Quiz Three: 5. Choose the correct answer:
Only at night ..... the safety of their cave
bats leave
bats will leave
leave bats
do bats leave
Why is it not possible to use 'bats leave'? I would like to acquire this grammatical
rule.
Quite often in English, certain expressions with a restrictive or negative meaning are
placed at the beginning of a sentence. The reason for doing so is to emphasize the
point that you want to make. It is striking, original or surprising in some way. And
whenever you make such a statement, inversion is necessary. So, it has to be:
" 'Only at night do bats leave their cave.'
" 'Only after I had returned home did I realize that I had left my watch in
Emma's bathroom.'
Inversion is also used after the not only ... but also construction:
" 'Not only did we visit Cuba's capital, Havana, (but) we also spent three days
exploring the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador.'
Inversion is also found in expressions containing the word 'no', when placed at the
beginning of the sentence:
" 'Under no circumstances are you (allowed) to walk home from school alone.'
" 'In no way will I agree to sharing an office with Ben.
The same rule operates for 'seldom', 'hardly', 'scarcely', 'rarely', 'never', 'never
before' and 'no sooner':
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" 'Never before had I seen such realistic dinosaurs as there were in the BBC
television series.' (This is a reference to a recent BBC series. If you want to
know more have a look at the web site - Walking with Dinosaurs.)
" 'No sooner had I arrived at the station than the train came in.'
" 'Rarely do we see such brightly-coloured birds.'
" 'Seldom do we walk on such green grass.'
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