the precisely Adj N

[Randy Alexander]

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:47 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>>Just saw this in a NYT article:
>>>
>>>"By the time the children go to bed, I am as drained as any mother who
>>>has spent her day working, car pooling, building Lego castles and
>>>shopping for the precisely correct soccer cleat."
>>>
>>>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/fashion/27love.html?
>>>_r=3&pagewanted=1
>>>
>>>(Quoted sentence is on the second page.)
>>>
>>>I would have to change that to "precisely the correct soccer cleat".
>>~~~~~~~~~~
>>What am I missing here? Â "the precisely correct soccer cleat" sounds
>>okay to me (aside from being a rather startling idea).
>>AM
>
> You're missing othing, I think, Alison. Â "The precisely correct
> soccer cleat" is the one that fits perfectly. Â Think Industrial
> Revolution and interchangeable parts.

Maybe it's just me then.  It's certainly less common though.

Raw Google:
"precisely the" 6,600k
"the precisely" 130k

COCA:
precisely the [j*] 284
the precisely [j*] 10

I still think that something like "that's precisely the right answer"
is OK, but "that's the precisely right answer" is weird, if not
unacceptable.

--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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