She knows very little about manners, if anything.

Question

HiCould you please tell me which of the yellow versions should I use?She knows very little about manners, if anything.She knows very little about manners, if any.Thanks,Tom

Philip · Accepted Answer

Use the first:

She knows very little, if anything, about manners.

'if anything' modifies 'very little', not 'manners'.

'any' would be used with a countable noun:

She has very few, if any, good ideas.

Mr. Tom · Answer

PhilipUse the first:

She knows very little, if anything, about manners.

'if anything' modifies 'very little', not 'manners'.

'any' would be used with a countable noun:

She has very few, if any, good ideas.

Thanks, Philip.

So, if I understand you correctly, the following should be correct. Please let me know.

He has very few manners, if any.

He knows very little about manners, if anything.

She has very few books, if any.

She reads very little, if anything.

He gives his wife very little money, if anything.

He gave his children no comforts, if any.

Tom

Mr. Tom · Answer

Hi

Any native speaker online?

Thanks,

Tom

MichalS · Answer

Hi,

If you will persist in keeping "if anything" at the end, I think that it would be more natural to say:

She reads very little, if at all.

He gives his wife very little money, if at all.

Let's wait for Philip and see if it's true.

Michal

MichalS · Answer

Mr. TomHe gave his children no comforts, if any.

I have just noticed that this one doesn't make much sense; you should have instead:

- He gave his children few comforts, if any.

No doubt this area is quite complicated for non-native speakers like us; I also have several questions. I gather that 'if at all' has a wider operational scope and it can appear even where 'if any' or 'if ever' are 'normally' used. Am I right so far? See the examples:

- We will recover in 100 years, if ever/if at all.

- More and more women are having fewer children, if any/if at all.

Would you say that both are possible here?
However there are context in which only 'if at all' is possible:

- She reads very little, if at all.
- He showed little compassion, if at all.

So.......to sum up:

If any - we use it only with countable nouns: 'Only one of the children, if any, escaped unhurt.'

If ever - we use it only in relation to time: 'We will recover in 100 years'
If anything - we use it only with transitive verbs which express a gradable concept, that is you can have different levels of it: 'He knows very little, if anything'.
if at all- we use it quite a lot......

Can anyone set me straight on that, please?

BarbaraPA · Answer

Michal seems to have expressed it the way I would have.

MichalS · Answer

Hi GG,

Thanks for the words of approval.

I think the topic's not yet nailed down and I still have some further observations to share but I don't feel up to doing that right now. I'll attempt to do that tomorrow so you can judge whether it's correct or not.

M

She knows very little about manners, if anything.

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