Dot Wordsworth

That annoying ‘likely’ is more old-fashioned than American

And Jane Austen used ‘sure’ as an emphatic yes

issue 14 February 2015

What, asks Christian Major of Bromley, Kent, do I think of ‘this new, I assume American, fad for using the word likely as an adverb’, as in the great Taki’s remark that Alan Turing ‘likely won the war’ (Spectator, Letters, 31 January)? Well, I would most likely not use it in exactly that way, although you’ll have noticed that I have just done so slightly differently.

The adverbial usage to which the Kentish Mr Major refers is now more likely to be heard on the lips of Americans...

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