Adverbs

“All ready” vs. “Already”

Adjectives, Adverbs, Versus

I sometimes see “all ready” where “already” is required.

Problem:
“All ready” is an adjectival phrase whereas “already” is an adverb.

Explanation:
The adjectival phrase “all ready” means entirely ready.

For example, “He was all ready to leave for Argentina.” means “He was entirely ready to leave for Argentina.”

The adverb “already” means either previously or now or so soon.

For example, “He already had left for Argentina.” means “He previously had left for Argentina.”

And “He is already here in Argentina.” means “He is now here in Argentina.”.

Solution:
Use “all ready” when you mean entirely ready. Use “already” when you mean previously or now or so soon.

“He did not call back yet.”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Tenses

I heard this yesterday on a radio show.

Problem:
The adverb does not match the tense of the verb.

Explanation:
The adverb “yet” means at the present time.

The expression “did not call” is in the past tense, so “yet” does not go with “did not call” (or any other expression in the past tense).

In other words, it makes no sense to say, “He did not call back at the present time.”

To fix this, one must change the expression to the present tense.

Solution:
“He has not called back yet.”

“Inoften”

Adverbs, Outsider's Perspective

I caught myself saying this yesterday.

Problem:
“Inoften” is a made-up adverb.

Explanation:
I was tired yesterday when, seemingly out of nowhere, I said “inoften” instead of “infrequently” or something else.

This made-up adverb puzzled me because I did not recognize it, so I asked my wife. She said that she had never heard of it.

The word then amused me because it made sense. In other words, if a non-native English speaker said this, you probably would understand what he or she meant.

I looked up “inoften” in an online dictionary and got back “Did you mean unoften?” instead of a definition.

It turns out that “unoften” is in at least one dictionary as an obsolete adverb that mean not often.

A Google search for “inoften” returned about 671 matches — relatively rare for the World-Wide Web today. In contrast, Google found the obsolete adverb “unoften” about 32,600 matches — not so rare.

Solution:
“Not often”