Anyone who genuinely doesn’t know the difference between “slightly” and “almost” has no business taking part in an argument about semantics. Tell them to come back when they’re ready to play.
It’s still current in British English too. At least, it sounds perfectly normal to me. I think the person was just joking about Americans not speaking the language properly in general.
One professor was furious for the laughter he received when he stated “The physical exam on the patient was normal except for coma.” It only took a second for him to convince most of this that this was a perfectly accurate description.
Damn. I’m pleased and disappointed at the same time.
You could perhaps let this person know that the SDMB is not exclusively American. I’m British, and find the term ‘almost exactly’ perfectly meaningful.
If your colleages still aren’t convinced by my appeal-to-nationality, how about this:
“Almost 70,000 people attended the Olympic Torch Relay event in Portsmouth”
70,000 is an exact number. If ‘almost exactly’ is problematic, so should be ‘almost 70,000’.
I don’t have a problem with “almost exactly,” but I think this argument is problematic. 70,000 may be an exact number, but it doesn’t look like one. In casual use, it looks like a number with one significant digit. What do you think of this example instead:
“Almost 70,135 people attended the Olympic Torch Relay event in Portsmouth.”
Still ok with it?
This. I have a bit of a pet peeve with the overuse of the term “oxymoron.” Most people don’t really know what it means (i.e. combining two contradictory terms with their normal meanings for asthetic reasons).
“Jumbo shrimp” is not an oxymoron. It might be a contradiction in terms, but it’s not an oxymoron.
“Sweet sorrow” is an oxymoron.
Some politician’s platform is not an oxymoron just because it has conflicting ideas.
“Burning coldness” is an oxymoron, unless you’re talking about your dermatologist’s wart-freezing thingy. Then it’s just an accurate descriptor. It’s only an oxymoron if you’re talking about the emotion in Hamlet’s soul or something.
In the OP’s situation, there is no way “almost exact” could accurately be described as an oxymoron.
More to the point of the OP (now that I’ve got the oxymoron rant out):
How do the coworkers think the idea should be conveyed? With just the word “almost”? That doesn’t mean the same thing. “Almost a million” means about 900k to 999,999 but not more. “Almost exactly a million” means (depending on context) let’s say 999k to 101k. They’re totally different meanings.
I can’t think of any other way to convey the meaning of “almost exactly” that would pass the OP’s coworkers’ objections.
Yes I am. It’s silly, but still sort of meaningful. If I ever encountered such a usage in the wild, I would probably assume 70,135 was some significant figure (like the precise number of tickets sold, or someone’s prediction of turnout)
Well, to be nitpicky, almost doesn’t connote strictly less than, it merely assumes it approaches the value in whatever the most intuitive manner is. If you’re cooling a room and it’s 81 degrees, “almost 80” is accurate whereas if it were 79 degrees saying that would be a bit odd. If you had a random number generator, “almost 100” would make sense regardless of whether you got 99 or 101. There’s also some stuff about thresholds (if you’re rolling against the number 15 in D&D, saying “almost 15” doesn’t make sense if you go over, even if it’s random by means of dice), but generally I think it holds.
RAVA: Maybe you think we’re in cahoots.
ELAINE: No, no. But it is quite a coincidence.
RAVA: Yes, that’s all: a coincidence!
ELAINE: A big coincidence.
RAVA: Not a big coincidence. A coincidence!
ELAINE: No, that’s a big coincidence.
RAVA: That’s what a coincidence is! There are no small coincidences and big coincidences!
ELAINE: No, there are degrees of coincidences.
RAVA: No, there are only coincidences! Ask anyone!
(Enraged, she poses the question to everyone in the elevator.)
RAVA: Are there big coincidences and small coincidences, or just coincidences? Well?! Well?!
(Everyone just shrugs and murmurs. The doors open.)
I think what your coworkers are arguing is that “exactly” is considered an absolute adverb, similar to absolute adjectives like “unique”. In traditional grammar, these cannot be modified because they represent an absolute concept (see #8 in this list). In practice, there are situations when it is OK to modify them. From the Oxford Dictionary definition of unique:
But I’m not enough of a grammar guy to know if “exactly” is even considered absolute in the first place.
There are certainly some absolute terms where combination with ‘almost’ grates really badly - for example: ‘almost infinite’, ‘almost endless’, ‘almost forever’ - they’re the same thing really - but in these cases, the ‘almost’ instantly destroys the meaning - ‘almost infinite’ would (I suppose) just mean ‘really, really big, but finite’ - so it’s not infinite at all.
Here’s a related phenomenon that makes me grimace every time I hear it: [something] was endless, but not as endless as [something else]. Really bad writing (not sure how many of the linked examples are doing it badly on purpose, but I’ve seen this one in print, in earnest.
I’ve got no problem with almost exactly. How else would you phrase it?
Uh, this should be “Neither of them IS convinced despite YOUR backing my position.”
I tend to agree. “Almost” means it isn’t quite. To Mangetout’s point, I also don’t have a problem with “almost” modifying infinite, endless, or forever. It means just what you suggest - it isn’t infinite or endless, it is almost.
That is different than the situation of comparing one ‘endless’ to another - I agree that grates.
Or maybe:
“usually don’t” or
“usually avoid” or
“usually make it a point to not”.
“Usually never” isn’t hideous, though. It has the feel of “usually make a great effort to avoid.”
How can anything be “almost infinite”? No finite magnitude, no matter how large, comes anywhere close to being infinite. Is there some non-finite magnitude that isn’t infinite, but “almost” so?
On a separate but related thread of thought: Can any measurable quantity be “almost average” or even “highly average”? Can a quality be “highly mediocre”?
True but irrelevant. A statement can be grammatical and yet nonsensical.
IMO, theirs is a fairly unique position on this…
someone beat me to unique…
See the bit I quoted above from the definition of “unique” in the Oxford dictionary. You are right: as an absolute concept, there is no such thing as “almost infinite”. But it has a secondary, less precise sense: it’s really huge/extensive/whatever, and we all know it isn’t infinite but man is it big. It is hyperbole used for dramatic effect, and while maybe not useful in a debate, it is still grammatically acceptable (which is where this all started).
I think “almost” is different from “highly”. There aren’t degrees of “averageness” or “mediocreness”, but “highly” implies that even after you achieve averageness or mediocreness, you can still become even more average or mediocre. “Almost” simply means you haven’t quite become average yet, which I would argue is OK.