Timeline for "vastly" for "to a [very] great degree; extremely" in contexts not involving comparison or measurement: BrEng vs. AmEng usage
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 4, 2016 at 15:02 | history | bounty ended | Elian | ||
| Apr 2, 2016 at 11:36 | history | edited | Captain Cranium | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Added specific Systems examples
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| Apr 2, 2016 at 9:52 | vote | accept | Elian | ||
| Mar 28, 2016 at 11:37 | comment | added | Phil Sweet | I don't think vast plays much of a roll in idioms. The idioms stem from expressing time or some other quantity in spacial terms. Length of time, expanse of time, span of time. Any of those can be vast. But I think you need to be much more careful with a vast period of time or a vast number of years. In these last two, you are pointing to the inconvenience of measuring them more so than the magnitude. I would try to use vast with collective nouns. A vast herd of zebras vs a vast number of zebras. A vast array vs a vast number of elements. I don't like it much as a substitute for multiplicity. | |
| Mar 27, 2016 at 15:55 | history | edited | Captain Cranium | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Clarified some references
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| Mar 27, 2016 at 12:46 | comment | added | Captain Cranium | @Lawrence Good point.Also, in thinking about this, I am starting to wonder about sidelong strategies for smuggling a degree of personal perspective into academic English. I mean, we only really need to be told that soil is an ecosystem. If we understand that statement, then we can easily infer that that means complexity, and vastly is entirely redundant. But part of the writer's mission is to engage our sense of wonder, not simply to tell us drily true things. I suppose that when I write about some text or other being (say) surprising or extravagant I am doing something similar. | |
| Mar 27, 2016 at 12:18 | history | edited | Captain Cranium | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Sorted-out the emphasis in my main quote (because it's from radio, not print)
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| Mar 27, 2016 at 12:08 | comment | added | Lawrence | +1 Also, I wouldn't consider The soil is to a great degree a complex ecosystem an improvement. Arguably, it doesn't even convey quite the same idea, with to a great degree possibly implying but not fully. | |
| Mar 27, 2016 at 11:56 | history | edited | Captain Cranium | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Added the HHGG example
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| Mar 27, 2016 at 11:33 | history | edited | Captain Cranium | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 653 characters in body
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| Mar 27, 2016 at 11:17 | history | answered | Captain Cranium | CC BY-SA 3.0 |