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Hardly ever, rarely, scarcely, seldom - English Grammar Today - a reference to written and spoken English grammar and usage - Cambridge Dictionary
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Hardly ever, rarely, scarcely, seldom - English Grammar...
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Hardly ever, rarely, scarcely, seldom - English Grammar...
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Hardly ever, rarely, scarcely, seldom — English Grammar...
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We can use scarcely instead of hardly. The meaning is the same. I'd (I had) scarcely / hardly finished cleaning up the mess when / before my son dropped cake on the floor. In more formal speech and in literature we sometimes use inversion after hardly and scarcely.
When a story is told in the past tense, the adverbials hardly, scarcely, barely and no sooner are often used to emphasise that one event quickly followed another. The verb describing the earlier event is usually in the past perfect tense. If hardly, scarcely, barely and no sooner are in the initial position, the subject and auxiliary are inverted:
Aug 20, 2013 · Hardly and scarcely. It is possible to express the same idea using hardly/scarcely…when. Hardly had I reached the station when the train came. Scarcely had I reached the station when the train arrived. As soon as. This structure is also used with the same meaning. As soon as I arrived at the station, the train came.
Hardly, barely, scarcely, no sooner. These adverbials often refer to an event which quickly follows another in the past and are usually used with past perfect. Hardly, scarcely and barely are followed by when in the contrasting clause, and no sooner is followed by than. Hardly had we sat down when we were told to evacuate the building.
We had scarcely arrived at the cinema when the film started. Sacking the coach was scarcely the best decision to take. As you can see, the examples above are very similar to the examples with ‘hardly‘. In face, you can substitute ‘scarcely‘ for ‘hardly‘ in all of the above examples. Barely. Barely means almost not, or only just.
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Oct 23, 2023 · The smell was so bad I could scarcely bear it. The woman was scarcely able to walk. If you use an auxiliary verb or modal with scarcely, put the auxiliary verb or modal first. Say, for example, `I could scarcely stand’. I can scarcely remember what we ate. Scarcely is sometimes used to emphasize that one thing happened immediately after ...