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Can evens be substitute for surely ? It seems to be used that way in this film called Peaky Blinders. This Irish mobster interrogates his ranks trying to flush out the one traitor. He says:
I've done the odds on all of you. Evens it's him. There's another possibility. But evens it's him.
Now this man is into horse racing, so his uses of odds and evens appear to be fitting of the mindset- probably jargon words in gambling (which I am happy to know nothing about.)
On the other hand, because I am stranger to gambling, that usage of evens sounds to me like it could well be equivalent to something like surely.
What's the odd of that ? -that evens is here not as gambling jargon, but only some dialect form of emphatic words like surely, or of the more common even. An even chance either way?
Or can evens be itself a standard usage, not even dialect, nor jargon?
And can you even substitute in the plain even for evens. But with that, can the resultant statement even be a grammatically appropriate use of even?
If you are a teenager reading this, I can see you're doing Wha? I can't even!
The term "evens" does come from gambling and is short for "even odds" which implies a 50% chance of success. At least in the context cited. But when gamblers use that term, they're usually more certain than 50% ... so it's kind of a reverse hyperbole.
So EmmettRedd's suggestion of "probably" for a substitute works fine. So would "likely" or "almost certainly."
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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