Language desk
< August 4	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 5

Hard or hardly??

Many adjectives become adverbs by adding -ly to them. For example, the adjective slow becomes the adverb slowly.

However, "hardly" is not the adverb form of hard; the adverb form of hard is still hard. Hardly has a different meaning. Why?? Georgia guy (talk) 00:10, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You may find the word history useful.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:17, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I will answer that language is arbitrary. There is no logical reason for the linguistic patterns. Given the etymology of the words, hardly and hard, hardly used to be an adjective of hard and means the modern sense of hard. However, by the 1540s, the word hardly means barely. For example:

* Hard pressing against the sand leaves an imprint.

* Hardly pressing against the sand leaves an imprint.

Once upon a time, the second sentence would have the first sentence's meaning. But now, it means the reverse. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 18:13, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The most natural word-order would be "Pressing hard against the sand..." -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:32, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]