Headline antecedents ...

[Powderhorn]

Tonight, we ran a headline that read something like:

Shooting Suspect Still at Large

with a deck that nearly ran of something along the lines of:

After being shot multiple times -- likely with children in the car -- the woman drives for help

I can't remember the precise wording -- it wasn't my page -- but I know that the deck used "the woman" when the only human mentioned up until that point was the suspect. I successfully lobbied for a change to "the victim" ("woman" would have worked, too), but by "successfully lobbied," I mean no-one really cared, so the change was made.

Am I just being a stickler for antecedents here?

[Deadline Dame]

I agree with you on that one.

However, what bothers me about the deck is the part "likely with children in the car."

Were they in the car or not? I don't think one should use a "maybe" in a deck.

[Chris Wienandt]

I agree with all of the above. Let me stickle further: Purists (and I am one on this subject) will insist that "likely" is an adjective unless it's preceded by "very." Otherwise, it means "probable," not "probably."

Then again, those with the opposite view would very likely consider me a pedant, not a purist.

[fev]

The adjective "likely" is still an adjective when it's preceded by "very":

It is likely
It is very likely
A likely story
A very likely story

The adverb "likely," meaning "probably," is more than six centuries old, tho the OED suggests that these days it's chiefly American. (And, as an adverb, can also be qualified by "very")

Anyway, pedant mode off. The original poster has a point: "the woman" points back to the person referred to earlier. I probably would have preferred "victim" to "the victim," but both the fixes are an improvement.

[dfisher]

And of course, that means it should also be "is likely to" instead of "likely will."

But that battle is about to be lost, as has been "host" and "over" and many others where, as Fred sensibly points out, there is a long and honorable history of usage. (Stone me, but I've even gotten past the point of worrying much about "everyone ... they"; it just seems a more sensible usage these days. However, I do draw the line on calling a company a "they.")

Last time I checked, the American Heritage panel was easing oh so closely to neutrality on the issue of likely as adjective or adverb.
----
Here's another one: expect.
How many of you would allow "I expect he will be here tomorrow"?

Yet, if you look at the grammar, expect is a transitive verb. Therefore, it should take objective case prepositions -- I expect him to be here tomorrow.

But how many times has it gotten by in your paper or publication? And did you really notice or care? Is it another one of those cases where usage is overtaking rule?

----
And then there's the use -- some say misuse -- of "percentage point" instead of "percent" for margins of error ...

Scratch that. I just wanted to get a rise out of FEV this early in the morning.
Doug

[editer]

Here's another one: expect.
How many of you would allow "I expect he will be here tomorrow"?

Yet, if you look at the grammar, expect is a transitive verb. Therefore, it should take objective case prepositions -- I expect him to be here tomorrow.

But how many times has it gotten by in your paper or publication? And did you really notice or care? Is it another one of those cases where usage is overtaking rule?

In "I expect he will be here tomorrow" there's an understood but elided "that": "I expect that he will be here tomorrow." The "that" clause is the object of "expect".

[Chris Wienandt]

The adjective "likely" is still an adjective when it's preceded by "very" ...

Not in Webster's New World, Fourth Edition.

[fev]

My 4th New World is downtown and I'm not (I'm kind of stuck with the OED, which has a "verie likelie" under adjectival "likely" dating from the 16th century). Could you summarize how the 4th New World explains that a particular adj stops being an adj when it's qualified by a specific adv? In "This thread is very long," is "long" no longer an adj because it's qualified by "very"?

In "That's a likely story," what part of speech is "likely"?
In "That's a very likely story," what part of speech is "likely"?

Fish, I promise I'll use "percent" for confidence intervals for the next month if you'll make Dick Vitale go away by the second half....

[Chris Wienandt]

They're a little weaselly about it; it's implicit rather than explicit. It says:

adv. --lier, liest probably [she will very likely go]

You can choose to subscribe to that or not. I do.

[fev]

Do I subscribe to the idea that adverbs can qualify adverbs? Sure. That's part of the definition of an adverb.

Where's the part where it says "very" stops the adjectival form of "likely" from being an adjective?

[Chris Wienandt]

That's what I meant by "implicit."

[editer]

Someone here is reading the dictionary wrong.

A misunderstanding is likely.

A misunderstanding is very likely.

Looks like an adjective in both cases to me.

She will likely go.

She will very likely go.

Looks like an adverb in both cases to me.

In the latter examples, the adverbial "likely" is rarely seen without an accompanying adverb such as "very" or "most"; that's a usage matter unrelated to the grammar. Ditto for the unexciting, passive-voice sentences in the former pair.

If your answer is "But I'd just rewrite the sentence instead," then you're weaseling.

[fev]

There are a number of explicit indicators on how the entry for "likely" in the 4th New World should be read. One, when an entry has two or more parts of speech with the same definition, the parts of speech appear together, as in:

whole-hog (...) adj, adv. ... Without reservation. ("Guide to the dictionary," p. xv).

"Likely" clearly isn't something in which the adj and adv mean the same thing.

Two, usage examples, as in the adverbial "likely" cited below, are "helpful in ... separating out individual uses from a large group of meanings" (p. xix) -- two meanings of transitive "raise," for example. For a part of speech without multiple meanings, the examples describe what that part of speech does. There's no indication that interj. "hip" has anything to do with the noun "hip."

With all that explicit information on how to read the dictionary (and yes, I do an hour or so at the beginning of every semester on how to read a reference book), there doesn't seem much need for readings of implicit or latent meaning. When you make a claim about implicit meanings -- gay subthemes in "Teletubbies," anti-Bush messages in Dan Rather's eyebrows, whatever -- you need to be really clear about how those meanings can be recognized if you expect them to have any empirical validity.

Which is why I'm spending excess time in this discussion, and apologies to anybody who's offended. As editors, we ask writers to trust us with their babies (misshapen as the li'l bastards may be). When we make a particular cut or change, we need to be able to explain it in a consistent, reality-based way. If we're lucky, they'll walk away not only feeling better but knowing something about, say, the difference between coordinate adjs and cumulative adjs -- thus making our job easier next time. If all we can offer is proclamations about the "purist" view and a few bizarre inferences about why one particular adjective stops behaving like every other adjective when under the influence of one particular adverb, we're telling them that grammar is on the same level as astrology.

You can choose to subscribe to that or not. I don't.

[editer]

What fev said.

[dfisher]

This is from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed. 2000)

Used as an adverb likely is most commonly preceded by a modifier such as very or quite: He will quite likely require some help with his classes. But the unmodified use of likely is common enough in educated writing, and though it might be better avoided in highly formal style, it should not be regarded as incorrect: They'll likely buy a new car this year.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/84/L0168400.html

This is from the 1996 AmH Book of English Usage:
You normally use the adverb likely preceded by a modifier such as very or quite: He will quite likely require some help with his classes. But the unmodified use of likely is common enough in educated writing, and though it might be better avoided in highly formal style, it is perfectly acceptable: They’ll likely buy a new car this year.
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0199.html

This from the Columbia Guide to Standard American English 1993
Kenneth G. Wilson

likely (adv.)
is equally Standard with or without a modifier such as more, most, quite, or very, despite the insistence of some commentators that it should never appear without one: He will (most) likely remain in town for a few days.
http://www.bartleby.com/68/64/3664.html

Garner does not speak to it that I can find, but I only have DMAU here at the office and not the more recent MAU.

Almost all dictionary uses use the helper adverb (M-W, for instance, uses "most" likely.")
---------------------------------
Additional:

Bremner, in "Words on Words," writes: "As an adverb, likely, unlike similar adverbs such as probably and possibly, should be preceded by a qualifying adverb such as most, quite, rather, very.

While Bremner has long been revered, recent commentators have noted that parts of his 1980 work are becoming out of date with more rapid changes in modern usage, and there always has been some question about some of his assertions, which do not include citations or examples.

From the M-W Dictionary of English Usage, which has an extensive entry (page 604), talks about Bernstein's condemnation of the form without a modifier and Fowler's (although, as he notes, he was talking British usage and allowed as how AmEng might be different). Available full text from Google Books)
"To sum up, the use of likely without a qualifier ... is well established in standard general use in North America. It is an old use, dating back to the 14th century. The strictures on it seem to have developed because it dropped out of mainstream literary use in England during the 19th century."