Avoid pairing "not" with other "minimizer" adverbs like scarcely or barely (e.g., avoid "can't barely").
When he told his sister about it, she said, “You can hardly call it freedom if you just swapped one worry for another.” Jonah thought about that and nodded. She was right in part—freedom, like grammar, wasn’t a one-word fix. But in the quiet that followed, he felt it anyway: small, imperfect, and real. He could hardly describe the relief in one sentence, yet it hummed in the space between the errands he no longer ran and the mornings he no longer scheduled. is it can hardly or cant hardly free
Because "can't" (cannot) and "hardly" are both negative, using them together creates a double negative. Logically, this would mean you can wait, which is usually the opposite of what the speaker intends. Usage Guide Avoid pairing "not" with other "minimizer" adverbs like
Follow these three simple rules:
The word "hardly" already means "almost not" or "scarcely." But in the quiet that followed, he felt
Here’s the clear answer:
), and literature to sound more casual or authentic to a character's voice. "can hardly"