This is a sentence:
"How nearly he had not gone there"
I want to know the exact usage of how nearly here. The web's empty. I found nothing so good.
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Where did you find this sentence, or did you compose it yourself?– ShoeCommented Jan 31, 2018 at 18:39
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1Without full context this is a guess, but I'd venture to say the meaning is that he almost didn't go there. It's an awkward wording that I'm not familiar with, as a native speaker.– Kristina LopezCommented Jan 31, 2018 at 18:47
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My guess: He almost did not go.– Ross MurrayCommented Feb 1, 2018 at 4:11
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Alternative guess: 'How nearly' is an adverb modifying 'gone'. ???– Ross MurrayCommented Feb 1, 2018 at 4:12
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@Shoe, it is in my class 12 book, chapter: The enemy...country: India– SelenaCommented Feb 1, 2018 at 12:02
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1 Answer
Sentences starting with how can be either questions or exclamations. There is no end punctuation on the sentence "How nearly he had not gone there", so it is not immediately obvious in this case. But it cannot be a question since the subject and verb are not inverted.
So, the sentence must be interpreted as an exclamation, with the probable meaning:
He had gone there, but he almost hadn't gone there.
The exclamation gives the utterance a greater force than the simple statement: He had nearly not gone there.
One reason that I too regard the original sentence as 'awkward' is that exclamations starting with how and including an auxiliarly verb often invert the subject and auxiliary. So, instead of:
How nearly he had not gone there!
we get
How nearly had he not gone there!
Here are some similar authentic examples from Google:
How nearly had he lost it all!
How nearly had the evil ones got possession of you.
How nearly had I forgotten to tell you of poor Lindsay's illness.
How nearly had all his efforts been in vain!
The other awkward aspect of the original sentence is its negation. It would have been more natural, in my opinion, to express the thought as:
- How nearly had he stayed at home!
- How nearly had he remained in India!
