| 词组 | scarcely |
| 释义 | scarcely 1. Scarce, scarcely. Several commentators have disparaged as an affectation the use of the old flat adverb scarce in modern contexts where scarcely would also do. The flat adverb was once common: • ... the gentlemen of the next age will scarce have learning enough to claim the benefit of the clergy — Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso, 1676 • ... allow his surgeon scarce time sufficient to dress his wound —Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, 1759 But it is now relatively rare. The extent to which it is an affectation in a particular context can only be judged subjectively. These examples do not seem to be affected: • Store money was predicated on handling the products of the community, something scarce any store does nowadays —John Gould, Christian Science Monitor, 19 Nov. 1976 • ... I could scarce see the horses' tails —J. K. Milne, Scottish Field, April 1974 See flat adverbs. 2. Scarcely is lumped with hardly (which see) in quite a few usage books as a negative, and its use with a preceding negative is disparaged as a double negative. There are two points to be made concerning this issue. First, scarcely is not a negative. Obviously "I scarcely studied" and "I didn't study" do not mean the same thing; the second is a negative, the first only somewhat like a negative. Second, the criticized construction seems to be rare in present-day English. Here is a late 19th-century example: • ... it wa' n't scarcely fair to keep it all to myself — H. N. Westcott, "The Horse Trader," 1898, in The Mirth of a Nation, ed. Walter Blair & Raven I. McDavid, Jr., 1983 Our files do not hold recent examples of this sort of construction, even from reported or fictional speech, and we suspect that it is not nearly as common as similar constructions with hardly, for which we have abundant evidence. On the other hand, scarcely is commonly followed by some sort of negative construction: • ... was scarcely unaware that a last great tribute to the world-famous composer could not fail to bring ... a large number of visitors —Francis Steegmuller, New Yorker, 1 May 1971 • ... there was scarcely an old family in New England which ... did not profit from the slave trade —Chester Bowles, N.Y. Times Mag., 7 Feb. 1954 • There is scarcely a peroration or passage ... which does not contain a gibe —Richard M. Weaver, The Ethics of Rhetoric, 1953 No one objects to these standard constructions. |
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