How to Express Degrees of Probability

How to Express Degrees of Probability

They say nothing in life is certain except death and taxes. For everything else on the spectrum of probability, you can be certain there’s an English word for it. Alas, getting the word order of these words right in a sentence can be tricky. But never fear – we’ve got your back. Even if the tax man doesn’t.

Definitely/Bound to

I would say most of you definitely know the word ‘definitely’, but do you know how to use it correctly in a sentence? Can you identify the grammatical mistakes below?

Definitely she will go to the party.

He won’t definitely break the law.

We will not definitely get a dog.

See what I mean by tricky? Here are the answers. Did you get them right?

She will definitely go to the party. *In the affirmative, ‘definitely’ goes after the subject + will

He definitely won’t break the law. * In the negative using a contraction, ‘definitely’ goes before after the subject and before ‘won’t.’

We will definitely not get a dog. * In the negative using the full form, ‘definitely’ comes in the middle of ‘will’ and ‘not’.

As you’ve probably noticed, getting the word order in sentences with ‘definitely’ (and in fact many other words expressing degrees of certainty) is definitely a chore, but with some practice you definitely won’t make as many mistakes.

Let’s move on to ‘bound to’, which has a similar meaning to ‘definitely’, although it should be clear that a condition exists to support this statement.

Here are some examples:

The candidate is bound to win the election because she is incredibly popular.

My friends are bound to be late picking me up because they’re always late.

The white rhino is bound to become extinct if we don’t tackle poaching.

There are bound to be plenty of traffic jams in Paris around the Olympics.

As you’re bound to have guessed, we use ‘bound to’ in order to make predictions. It would sound very weird to express your plans or intentions with bound to:

I’m bound to stay at home and watch the game. √

I’ll definitely stay at home and watch the game. X

You could, however, say that your favourite team is bound to win because you have some evidence, such as the fact that the opposition consists of notoriously poor players, or, perhaps, pure denial on your part.

Likely/Unlikely

‘Likely’ lies somewhere in that grey misty area between ‘certain’ and ‘possible’. It’s likely that as an English student, you will make a mistake with this word, so let’s get to the bottom of it, shall we? Have a look at these two sentences below. Notice any differences?

He is likely to pass the exam if he studies.

It is likely that he will pass the exam if he studies.

It’s likely that you noticed that the way we start the sentence determines its grammar. We can summarise this rule as follows:

It is + likely/unlikely that + subject + will + infinitive Subject + to be + likely/unlikely + to + infinitive

Remember that in some cases ‘it’ is actually the subject, and in this case it’s best to stick to the first rule, as the second option sounds clumsy:

It’s likely to rain later. √

It is likely that it will rain later. X

An alternative to likely/unlikely is probable/improbable, however, we can’t use a subject to begin a sentence with these words:

The economy is probable to get worse. X

It is probable that the economy will get worse. √

One last thing to keep in mind with likely/unlikely and probable/improbable is that they are usually used in formal contexts, which makes them useful in formal essays or letters.

It is very unlikely/improbable that someone would use this language to describe their weekend plans, for instance, unless they were a robot. Or Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.

Top tip: Likely/Unlikely and Probable/Improbable collocate with the adverb ‘highly’, eg It is highly unlikely/improbable that global warming will be solved by capturing CO2 emissions with fishing nets.

Probably

Like the words mentioned before, this guy is also a stealthy ninja and should be approached with caution. Let’s see how good your ninja skills are. Only one of the sentences below is correct. Which is it?

I probably will visit my great aunt.

Probably I will visit my great aunt.

I will possibly/probably visit my great aunt.

If you said that number one or two is correct, sorry, you have run afoul of a nimble-footed martial artist. The answer is the last sentence. How on earth does one make sense of this? Well, if you recall, the word ‘definitely’ works in the same way in the affirmative, and in the negative too in fact:

She definitely won’t eat after midnight. / She probably won’t eat after midnight.

A useful way to memorise the word order is by remembering that people are lazy. Um, what? Well, as you know, when speaking we like to use contractions (because saying the words in full just takes too much effort); therefore, we need to keep the subject and ‘will’ glued together in a sentence, eg

I will go to the shops. —> I’ll go to the shops.

Without this, we wouldn’t be able to use contractions and there might well be riots all over the world.

Top tip: Remember that ‘probably’ and ‘possibly’ might sound similar, but they connote different degrees of certainty. If I am probably going to the party, I am quite sure I am going, but if I am possibly going, I am only around 50% sure.

Let’s wrap up by studying this email sent from an imaginary person to his imaginary friend. Can you spot the words and phrases we learnt about?

Hi John,

Thanks for your email! You asked about my plans for the rest of the year. Well, I’m definitely going to take a week off in October to visit my sister in London. We’ll probably go to the new Harry Potter theme park. Have you been there? It’s bound to be awesome because it’s received tons of glowing reviews. One newspaper said: ‘It is probable that this is London’s best attraction after the London Eye!’

I’ll probably stay at my sister’s place. It’s bound to rain while I’m there – you know what London weather is like! But I don’t mind. I think I’ll definitely have a great time anyway as there are bound to be plenty of fun indoor things to do. We’re possibly going to take a train to the country and see what village life is like. I’ll definitely buy you a souvenir!

How about you? Got any interesting plans?

Bye for now!

Harry

By the way, sorry to raise your hopes, but as yet there is no Harry Potter theme park!