Grammar – Is ‘May Possibly’ Correct?

grammarword-usage

I would like to know if it is grammatically correct to use may possibly to express possibility, such as in the following sentence:

Middle income countries may possibly experience a significant increase
in health expenditure in the next five years.

Best Answer

Although "may possibly" is one of the most common redundancies, you still have a chance of meeting it in books written by the authors whose mother tongue is English. Interestingly, the older the book, the higher your chance of meeting it is, even if it still is very slight, to say the least.

As for me, I don't think that all those authors and the editors of their books were so illiterate as not to be aware of such vocabulary error as a redundancy. So my take on it is that the use of "may possibly", denoting a rather vague, merely hypothetical possibility, sometimes doesn't seem to be so glaring a mistake as, say, reply back, repeat again, cash money, etc.

All that said, it is a redundancy, a vocabulary, not grammatical (IMO) mistake a learner should by all means avoid.

Related Solutions

Learn English – Does “would” indicate intent but not possibility

'Would' is considered as polite form of 'will'. You can use 'would' when you're little unsure about something, however, when you're totally sure, you should consider using 'will' instead of 'would'.

Example:
I would like to go for picnic. (possibility, but not sure about its happening)
I will go for picnic.  (more stronger than first)

Learn English – “do stretching” vs. “do stretches” which sound better? Are both of these grammatically correct

Do with a gerund (like stretching), though grammatical, is not very idiomatic. However, with a quantifier it is completely idiomatic.

So do stretching sounds odd ;but do some stretching (or a bit of stretching or a lot of stretching) is fine.

Now I think of it, the same is true for the nominal stretches: do some stretches (or do a few stretches) is much more natural than do stretches.

I think the difference between do some stretches and do some stretching is that the latter sounds less organised, and possibly less intentional. But the difference in meaning is not great.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Learn English – Does “would” indicate intent but not possibility

Learn English – “do stretching” vs. “do stretches” which sound better? Are both of these grammatically correct

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