OT: hardly Re: [Gambas-user] window focus

[Benoit Minisini]

On Sunday 25 April 2004 17:53, Rob wrote:
> On Sunday 25 April 2004 10:38, Benoit Minisini wrote:
> > > >- I may not understand what you hardly try to explain.
> > >
> > > Please have a look into you Dico for 'hardly try'.
> >
> > Mmm ? What is the problem with "hardly try" ? Doesn't it mean
> > "trying with difficulties" ?
>
> Nope, "hardly" in English very rarely means "with difficulties",
> if at all; it's idiomatic.  It means something like "to the
> minimum possible degree" or "almost surely not".  Its
> connotation is somewhat negative.
>

OK. Now I remember what my english teachers told me :-)

> You could express how easy something was by saying "I hardly even
> had to try", for example, whereas "I hardly tried to get it
> done" means that you didn't try very much at all.
>
> The adverbial form of "hard" is "hard" itself, in one of those
> wonderful English inconsistencies.

In french, inconsistency *is* the rule :-)

>
> Rob
>

-- 
Benoit Minisini
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