When a child says Mazagine I can understand perfectly what they mean, doesn't make what they say right though does it?

This. :hmph:

Show me the rule in grammar I fall foul of. Like Barely and hardly are opposites. Barely reached the North Pole, hardly reached it. So are "nobody" and "anybody".

That's a clearly demonstrable spelling error.

Now you are just talking rubbish, Nemo.

"Barely and Hardly" are opposites! :conf: :elephant::dance::elephant: :devil: :joker:

For a start, you ended this sentence with a preposition.

In the phrases we are discussing they are.

Show me the grammar rule and I'll concede. But it is not a double negative.

Had you given this thread the title "Almost Nobody" we wouldn't be discussing this!

I'm was aware of that before I posted it, so I googled that first,

"Stranded prepositions are nothing to fret about

There are numerous myths relating to grammatical dos and don’ts, many of which were drummed into us at school. The one that stubbornly refuses to budge from my mind is the diktat ‘never begin a sentence with a conjunction such as and or but’. And why not, pray?*

Some of these groundless rules (termed ‘fetishes’ by Henry Fowler in 1926) have a long history. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, some notable writers (aka Latin-obsessed 17th century introverts) tried to make English grammar conform to that of Latin – hence the veto on split infinitives and also the ruling against the ending of a sentence with a preposition (also called stranding or deferring a preposition).

These and other language myths are amazingly persistent, though, so who you gonna call? Oxford’s Myth Debunkers, of course! To kick off this occasional series, let’s try to zap the one about stranded prepositions and lay it to rest once and for all."

et cetera

In English, Barely and Almost are not interchangeable, not sure about in Irish! :joker::wavey:

Tut, tut.

Picking up on obvious typos now!

I didn't say they were.

I'm barely doing nothing.

Nemo, if your spelling was as consistent as your arguments I'd forgive you the odd lapse!

Well this isn't an argument about spelling.

I beg the court's leave to abandon this case.

"We do not use another negative in a clause with nobody, no one or nothing:
Nobody came.
Nothing happened."

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.o...inite-pronouns

I'm doing barely nothing myself.

Is "Barely" a negative?

Doing barely no business is a common phrase in these parts, especially in the last few years.

I'm reporting the education standards in your local area.

It doesn't matter what common slang or phrases you hear, doesn't make it proper English.

I hear "I'm not doing nuffink" in Eastenders quite a lot, doesn't make it correct.

That's a clear double negative combined with cockneys inability to pronounce any word with th in it.