Helping English language learners
Exceedingly and excessively are both adverbs. They have related but different meanings: Exceedingly means “very”. For example: “She wrote an exceedingly good essay”. Excessively means something like “too”: “The children were excessively noisy”.
There is a great deal of discussion and even disagreement about these words. The safest approach is to always use “while”.
Examples: It might help to think of a raven: Of course, there are exceptions and other meanings:
In their literal senses: An audience listens Spectators watch That’s because “Audience” comes from the Latin verb: “audire”, meaning to hear “Spectator” comes from the Latin verb “spectare”, meaning to watch In normal use:...
It’s possible, but it’s better to say “a third the size of” or possibly “a third as big as” In everyday conversation people might say – and would certainly understand – “three times as...
“A lot of” and “lots of” are interchangeable Both mean “a large number of” or “a large amount of” Both expressions can be used with countable and uncountable nouns Some people say that both...
There seems to be no strict rule “At the beginning” is often used to refer to the actual point when something starts. In this case it is usually used with “of”. For example: “At...
“Better” is the comparative form of the adjective “good” “Much better”, is used to describe something that is better than “better” One meaning of “far” is “very much”. “Far better” is used to say...