Matt from Waukesha, Wisconsin, has been discussing the words barely and nearly with his 10-year-old son Simon. They know the two words are nearly alike, but how exactly? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Barely vs. Nearly”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, my name is Matt.
And Simon. We’re from Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Simon and Matt, hello. Welcome to the show. What can we do for you?
Well, we had a question. We were walking to school.
This is actually a couple years ago and we’ve been waiting to call.
We finally did it.
So we were walking to school and we had a question.
Simon, do you remember what words we were wondering about?
The difference between barely and nearly.
I was trying to think about it for a minute because they seem similar.
But then I used sort of my dad kind of approach was like, well, if you pardon my bluntness, but if you nearly poop your pants, then you almost did, but you’re in the clear.
If you barely pooped your pants, it seemed like you just a little bit not good, better go change.
So that was my dad’s approach at translating it and putting it in a very clearly painted sort of setup for Simon.
And we’ve kind of explored that because there’s sort of subtle opposites.
But Simon, you had one too, right?
What was your thought on it?
Like if you nearly fell off a cliff, you barely hung on.
And then if you barely fell off, you nearly hung on.
Yeah, kind of.
Yeah, yeah, it’s true.
It’s all about those circumstances, right?
So you might almost think about it as a timeline where there’s an event
Nearly is before the event and barely is after the event, right?
Right, right.
It seems like it gets, because when we were trying to look at opposites,
You couldn’t say, like, I nearly died versus I barely died.
Right.
There’s a completeness.
It seems to work only if there were, like, shades of something, in a sense.
Yeah, timing-wise, it seems to fit that.
Yeah, so it’s more about chronological.
It’s more about time than it is about them being opposites.
That’s so interesting because I think of it in terms of space.
I’m thinking visually.
Like if I reach my finger out and I nearly tap you on the shoulder,
I didn’t really tap you on the shoulder,
But if I barely tap you on the shoulder, I’ve crossed a line.
But it’s the lightest of touches.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, time and space are the keys here, I think.
I love it that dad immediately went to the bodily functions for the explanation.
And the son’s got the classy one.
He’s talking about cliffs and falling.
Nice going, Simon.
Way to be the adult, kid.
Yeah.
I think it’s that my job has informed that of me as being an at-home dad.
Okay.
Wow, it sounds like you all have a lot of interesting conversations.
Well, he’s 10 now, and when he was 8, he had written a chapter book, a Star Wars-inspired chapter book.
Oh, nice, Simon.
Over 100-some pages into it when he moved on to the next book.
I don’t know if he’s quite finished some of them, but he’s quite a reader and writer.
A hundred pages.
What was the title?
The Lost Ship.
The Lost Ship.
Sounds great.
Sounds like a good idea.
Keep writing, bud.
Keep them coming.
And don’t feel like you have to finish it.
When the new idea comes, just let it pour out onto the page.
That’s how you get to be a better writer.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, Simon, Matt, thank you so much for calling us.
We really appreciate this.
Call us again sometime.
Let us know about these disengaged.
Yeah, puzzle this stuff out.
We’ll help, all right?
We love thinking about this stuff.
Join us on the air another time, okay?
Take care.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Thanks, bye-bye.
Sometimes it’s about cliffs.
Sometimes it’s about number two.
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