Another "nearly" from the wrong side

[Dan Goncharoff]

I would argue the word 'nearly' doesn't suggest "a scalar position below or
before X(ing, but the context does. There is no wrong side of new -- it's
new or it's not. Similarly, there is no wrong side of 21 -- you're either
21 and over, or you're not. You've either started or you haven't.

In a context with two true sides, like the original example of 'nearly
half', I am suggesting that 'nearly' means 'not exactly', and that can be
above or below.

DanG


On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 2:09 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Another "nearly" from the wrong side
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Aug 29, 2013, at 1:54 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>
> > Does "nearly" have a wrong side? Why can't near-ness be a slightly higher
> > amount? Now if the article had used "almost", I would share your concern.
> >
> > DanG
>
> For a lot of speakers, "nearly X" shares this scalar property with "almost
> X" and "not quite X", all of them suggesting a scalar position below or
> before X(ing), whether X is a number, an amount, or a time point/interval.
>  But it can be overridden in context with varying degrees of success.  So
> while "almost/nearly started" usually means not yet begun, we can get
> examples like "almost a child" or "almost a virgin" in "wrong-side"
> contexts like
>
> Anyway, she was only 16. Technically she might be an adult but really she
> was only a child. You couldn’t make people who were almost children be
> responsible for dead bodies, could you?
>  —Kate Atkinson, _When Will There Be Good News?_
>
> or the David Cassidy movie "Almost a Virgin".    For me "nearly" works in
> such cases too, but YMMV.  I do notice a lot of sites for "nearly
> newlyweds", and in particular for the "Nearly Newlywed Wedding Dress
> Boutique" that sells "nearly new" dresses, which would be another example
> (=/= not yet new).  To be sure, though, someone who is "nearly/almost 21"
> is nearly/almost short of 21, rather than long of it.
>
> LH
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 1:49 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> >> Subject:      Another "nearly" from the wrong side
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> "Ackerman disclosed that he sold 39.1 million shares to the bank for
> >> $12.60 per share ... That's nearly half of the average $25 a share
> >> that he paid when he first invested in Penney in 2010."
> >>
> >> For me, "nearly half" would be $12.40 a share.  Although I suppose
> >> that if one is watching one's investment on its way down, $12.60 is
> >> nearly $12.50.
> >>
> >> "Ackerman takes a $400m bath on J.C. Penney".  Anne d'Innocenzio,
> >> Associated Press.  August 29.
> >>
> >> Joel
> >>
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