Is using the word 'almost' followed by a word like 'everyone' bad English?

BOHtox

I just saw on the Sky News website the sentence "Virginia almost always votes Republican". Should it not be "Virginia most of the time votes Republican"? "Almost always" just seems like really poor use of English.

I remember writing an essay in school using the term "almost everyone". My English teacher, after correcting the classes' essays, said words to the effect of "Everyone's essays were actually pretty good. Well, almost everyone" as he looked me in the eye. He was saying it sarcastically of course. He then said to me after class to avoid using phrases like that.

I'm wondering is it an actual rule in English or does it just look and sound bad.

Cheers

looksee

I can't see anything wrong with that. A phrase that does irritate me is "one of the only" which does not make any sense at all.

Ragnar Lothbrok

BOHtox wrote: »

I just saw on the Sky News website the sentence "Virginia almost always votes Republican". Should it not be "Virginia most of the time votes Republican"? "Almost always" just seems like really poor use of English.

I remember writing an essay in school using the term "almost everyone". My English teacher, after correcting the classes' essays, said words to the effect of "Everyone's essays were actually pretty good. Well, almost everyone" as he looked me in the eye. He was saying it sarcastically of course. He then said to me after class to avoid using phrases like that.

I'm wondering is it an actual rule in English or does it just look and sound bad.

Cheers

"Most of the time" only conveys that its 50%+ of the time though, so it's not as strong as "almost always" which would suggest to me that it's 90%+ of the time. The same goes for "almost everyone" which definitely sounds more than "most people". Perhaps both expressions could be replaced by "the vast majority"?

BOHtox

I think his point may have been that words like 'always' and 'everyone' are absolute statements. Everyone means everyone. Always means always and it may be improper to use those words with 'almost' preceding it. If you wish to convey 'almost always' there's better ways to do it. "Most of the time" being one and "The vast majority of the time" being one too.

looksee

'The vast majority of the time' - how can you have a 'vast majority' of a concept such as time? It seems to be much less grammatical than 'almost all' or 'almost everyone'.

CelticRambler

It's not so much "bad English" as "bad writing". It implies that you have carried out substantial research to justify the statement that follows, and that you've quantified the "everyone" concerned.

Your teacher would have been using it correctly - rather than sarcastically - if he'd said "everyone in the class" because he'd defined the population concerned, and because he was in a position to know what everyone (in the class) had written. If you were to say something like "almost everyone in Ireland gets their child baptised" you're immediately leaving yourself open to a challenge, unless you can back the statement up with statistics (and then you still have to define what you mean by "almost" ...

If you're quoting him accurately, then the first part of the phrase contains worse examples of bad writing, so I don't think he was picking on you! :cool:

looksee

CelticRambler wrote: »

It's not so much "bad English" as "bad writing". It implies that you have carried out substantial research to justify the statement that follows, and that you've quantified the "everyone" concerned.

Your teacher would have been using it correctly - rather than sarcastically - if he'd said "everyone in the class" because he'd defined the population concerned, and because he was in a position to know what everyone (in the class) had written. If you were to say something like "almost everyone in Ireland gets their child baptised" you're immediately leaving yourself open to a challenge, unless you can back the statement up with statistics (and then you still have to define what you mean by "almost" ...

If you're quoting him accurately, then the first part of the phrase contains worse examples of bad writing, so I don't think he was picking on you! :cool:

Except that we don't know the subject of the essay, so it is possible that the OP wrote 'almost everyone has one head'.

CelticRambler

looksee wrote: »

Except that we don't know the subject of the essay, so it is possible that the OP wrote 'almost everyone has one head'.

Well I've got four that I can think of straight off ... ! :pac: