It is virtually impossible to escape this place!
I don't really understand what is virtually doing there. First, I can hardly tell what it means to be virtual, and second, I still don't see any extra value added to the sentence compared to
It is impossible to escape this place!
As far as I can tell, virtually seems to simply give emphasis to the current situation. But I'm lost.
According to http://www.thefreedictionary.com/virtual,
1 . Existing or resulting in essence or effect though not in actual fact, form, or name: the virtual extinction of the buffalo.
I don't get that meaning, and I certainly don't even understand the difference between the virtual extinction of the buffalo and the extinction of the buffalo. Now then, I may have grabbed the wrong definition. Here's the other one:
2 . Existing in the mind, especially as a product of the imagination. Used in literary criticism of a text.
This definition seems to suggest me that virtually is used to create some kind of psychological (of the mind) context. So when they say
It is virtually impossible to escape this place!
It is meant to say something like "even though it is physically possible to escape, people are too scared to even try to do it – therefore, it is rather impossible to escape".
Not sure. Any ideas about the usage of virtually?
Note: The context in the sentence I provided is basically this: It is from an article about a community where people are so poor that
It is virtually impossible to escape this place!
Best Answer
You're over-thinking it.
Virtualhere means "in essence, but not in fact".to clarify:
Extinct means "no longer in existence; having died out." For the buffalo to be extinct, every last buffalo must have perished from the Earth.
The North American buffalo is not extinct. There are a few thousand of them left. They are virtually extinct.
It's very, very difficult to escape, nigh on impossible, but nothing is completely impossible. Virtually nothing...
to clarify some more: I think virtually can be distinguished from almost, in that almost merely denotes quantitative proximity. If a bullet whizzed by your head, it almost killed you -- but there's a tremendous difference between being almost killed and actually being killed.
Virtually means the difference between the current state and the named state is detectable, but not significant. The buffalo is virtually extinct in the sense that it exists only in a few scattered domesticated herds. The continental masses of bison that once ruled the Great Plains, their essential buffalo-ness, are gone forever.