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I recently heard a BBC NewsHour broadcast mentioning a war crimes trial of two men responsible for "nearly killing 1200 people." I took "nearly" to be synonymous with "almost" *. It was clear from the context that they meant the men were responsible for killing somewhere around 1200 people. But to me, "killing nearly X people" is very different from "nearly killing X people." The latter implies that 1200 were almost killed, but they survived.
I cannot make my mind accept "nearly killing X" to mean "killing nearly X". Is there some demographic for which this is the normal interpretation, or for which those two phrases mean the same thing?
* And apparently nearly >= almost. The actual number was 1220. I have always taken "nearly" to mean "almost". But "almost" always approaches the number from the below. "Almost 100" could mean "99", but not "101". Here, "nearly X" apparently meant "a number near X", so that nearly X can be more than X, making nearly more synonymous with "about" than "almost."
I am with you on several points.
I would only use nearly to mean something short of ... or almost ... , but I am not surprised that others use more like about.
Furthermore, I agree that in writing, or in formal speaking, or with someone I know to be a careful speaker, I would expect that " ... nearly killing 1200 people ... " would refer to something like almost accidentally blowing up an office building -- something that narrowly missed being a tragedy. But again, my expectations for informal speaking are much lower, and I would actively look for contextual clues to tell me exactly what the nearly was modifying. In this case, I would ban the speaker from my short list of careful speakers.
Since the BBC news segment probably had a writer -- unless it was an on-the-scene ad-hoc report -- I would expect better. I might write a letter.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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