[b]- Little did I know the full extent of his involvement in the fraud.
These sentences are from the thread titled “little.”
little
They don’t mean the same thing, do they?
I think that the first one means “Little did I know that he was fully involved in the fraud,” and that the second one means “Little did I know how fully he was involved in the fraud.”
I really don’t understand why you felt the need to start a new thread about this, when it followed on quite naturally within another thread.
The difference in these two is about the precision -
Little did I know the full extent of his involvement in the fraud:
I knew he was involved to some extent, but I didn’t appreciate how deep that involvement was. (It doesn’t necessarily mean that he was fully involved).
Little did I know about the extent of his involvement in the fraud:
I knew he was involved to some extent, but I didn’t appreciate that he was more deeply involved than I first realised (It doesn’t necessarily mean that he was deeply involved - though he might have been). Therefore this sentence is less precise in terms of how involved the 3rd party was.
Little did I know the full extent of his involvement in the fraud.
Little did I know about the full extent of his involvement in the fraud. 'About is unnecessary and makes no significant difference, but it isn’t incorrect to add it.
Thank you, B. Since I’m not sensible or do not deserve any respect, those sentences are too difficult for me to understand.
Let’s have a break over a cup of herbal tea.
Do you want to put some lemon in it?
macmillandictionary.com/dict … ican/silly
extent
[uncountable] the size and importance of a problem or situation
extent of:
[color=red]We were shocked by the extent of the damage.
[color=green]The government underestimated the extent of the contamination.
[color=red]The first sentence implies that the damage was serious, and [color=green]the second sentence implies that the contamination was serious, doesn’t it?
[color=blue]The third sentence means “Doctors still don’t know about his injures well,” doesn’t it?
In the first two sentences ‘extent’ could certainly imply seriousness (importance), but the usage of ‘extent’ primarily indicates that they were more widespread (size) than expected.
Usage in the third sentence also indicates size, but here importance is the primary meaning. They don’t know how serious (or widespread) his injuries are yet.
Thank you, B. I understand the response very well.