Looked strangely enough/Looked strange enough

Question

Can they mean the same thing?

Avangi · Accepted Answer

Hi, I'm inclined to say, "No."

People often use "looked strangely enough" as though the "verb of sense" sense were an action, but I don't believe it's correct.

He looked at me very strangely, means, the manner in which he performed the action of looking at me was very strange. He had a wierd look in his eye. He seemed to be threatining me, etc. "Strangely" is an adverb. It tells how he did it.

I thought the pork looked/smelled/was/seemed strange. My senses are telling me something about the condition of the pork. The pork is strange. "Strange" is an adjective, or verb complement. (Smelling strangely is not an action performed by the pork, although it often seems that way. That would be said, "The pork is emitting a strange odor.")

Best wishes, - A.

Wholegrain · Answer

"True," returned the merchant, and looked down a moment in thought, then, raising his head quickly, said, in a tone not so benign as his wonted one, "This would seem a rare chance, indeed; why, upon first hearing it, did you not ****** at it? I mean for yourself!"
"I?--would it had been possible!"
Not without some emotion was this said, and not without some embarrassment was the reply. "Ah, yes, I had forgotten."
Upon this, the stranger regarded him with mild gravity, not a little disconcerting; the more so, as there was in it what seemed the aspect not alone of the superior, but, as it were, the rebuker; which sort of bearing, in a beneficiary towards his benefactor, looked strangely enough; none the less, that, somehow, it sat not altogether unbecomingly upon the beneficiary, being free from anything like the appearance of assumption, and mixed with a kind of painful conscientiousness, as though nothing but a proper sense of what he owed to himself swayed him. At length he spoke:
"To reproach a penniless man with remissness in not availing himself of an opportunity for pecuniary investment--but, no, no; it was forgetfulness; and this, charity will impute to some lingering effect of that unfortunate brain-fever, which, as to occurrences dating yet further back, disturbed Mr. Roberts's memory still more seriously."

Avangi · Answer

What can I say?  Beauty is as beauty does.   (If you can read this, you surely know what I mean.)

Wholegrain · Answer

sorry, but what do you mean?

Avangi · Answer

Some have questioned your wisdom in reading Melville, and still you persist. I don't know your motives, but it's so difficult there must be a personal side to them. Perhaps you find his work beautiful, as I do. If so, you might be inclined to let him make his own rules.

The example you pointed out clearly goes against my advice, but it's something you hear all the time. There may well be an explanation that fits in with correct current usage. I don't know. But if he used it, it's okay by me.

Best regards, - A.

Looked strangely enough/Looked strange enough

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