I've made the sentence:
The airport was built all but with the techonology I mentioned
earlier.
I'm trying to learn how to use the all but idiom in the sentences. I'm nt sure about the sentence, it seems a little wierd to me.
Learn English – The sentence with all but
sentence-construction
Related Solutions
At the first chance is occasionally found in contexts like this, but as J.R. suggests it is rare, and it feels alien to my ear. The Google Ngram below appears to corroborate this; as you see, chance occurs in print only about 5% as often as opportunity—and some of those occurrences are "false hits", things like He leapt at the first chance.
Note, however, that chance is considerably more frequent when it takes a complement such as at the first chance to meet you or a modifier such as at the first chance he got.
Nonetheless, I would avoid chance in these contexts and write opportunity instead:
I will come and meet you at the first opportunity.
As @drmoishe-pippik notes in the comment, all sound correct in US English except that "appreciate you staying" should be "appreciate your staying". All three forms are polite and non-assertive: "If you don't mind, I would..."
More assertive forms would also sound (almost) correct: "If you don't mind, I want you to..." or "...I need you to...". However, in this case I would reverse the phrases:
- I want you to stay with us -- if you don't mind.
- I need you to stay with us -- if you are willing.
- Please stay with us.
In all cases "I" am expressing a desire (that you stay with us) and making it clear that it is "your" decision as to whether to do so.
Best Answer
I think why your construction sounds weird is the placement of the word "with".
It seems like it should be:
"All but" is modifying "the technology I mentioned earlier". Here, it's short for "all (technology) but the technology I mentioned earlier", where the "but" is to mean "except". It's strange to move the "with" in between them for the same reason it would be strange to see:
And this clearly doesn't make sense since with our conjunction "but", we should be able to look at the first phrase and have them make sense:
Clearly, this is begging for a "with" between "built" and "all technology".