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幾乎（Almost）和接近（Nearly）的英文：哪個比較接近？

作者： Wallace

發布日期： 2016 / 1 / 28,

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我幾乎在每堂課都會談到用字精確的重要性。

前陣子讀到一本有點歷史的文法書： The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose，1943。

有趣的是，這本書嘗試為相近字排列順序，這部分的內容出現在「明確敘述的原則 Principles of Clear Statement」的章節中 (p. 127)。這項原則是：「談到多少或多久時，絕對要精確無誤」。

書中對於用字精確度的重視，顯示出用字選擇的重要性在過去這七十年中，幾乎沒有太大的改變。

這本書的作者表示此「比例的普遍度量」表沒有收錄在任何字典或參照表中，內容如下：

Not nearly（幾乎沒有）、nearly（幾近）、almost（幾乎）、not quite（不完全）、all but（將近）、just not（唯獨沒有）、within an ace（差一點）、within a hair’s breadth（毫釐之差）、oh! by the skin of my teeth（就差那麼一點）、just（剛好）、only just（差一點不能）、with a bit of a rush（有幾分倉促）、comfortably（從容）、easily（輕鬆）、with plenty to spare（時間充裕）。

身為讀者的我們也許不贊成這個排列順序，甚至還想加入其他詞。這些片語中，有些看來武斷，有些則是過時，但看到這些詞按順序一字排開，還挺有趣的。如果您曾疑惑nearly或almost哪個比較接近指涉目標，以下兩位細心的讀者認為，nearly更接近目標。

Graves和Hodge認為「比例的普遍度量」（如nearly、part of等）可以轉換成百分比，他們將這個轉換結果如下列出（底線為本文作者所加）：

(100%) Mr. Jordan’s fortune consisted wholly of bar-gold.
(99%) Practically all his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(95%) His fortune consisted almost entirely of bar-gold.
(90%) Nearly all his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(80%) By far the greater part of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(70%) The greater part of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(60%) More than half his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(55%) Rather more than half his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(50%) Half his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(45%) Nearly half his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(40%) A large part of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(35%) Quite a large part of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(30%) A considerable part of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(25%) Part of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(15%) A small part of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(10%) Not much of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(5%) A very small part of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(1%) An inconsiderable part of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.
(0%) None of his fortune consisted of bar-gold.