Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[jasonlulu_2000]

These places of interest are _____ close to each other.
A. highly B. reasonably


Can both of them be collocated with adjective "close"?


PS: You should take good care of all these equipment, for they are so expensive.

Should I replace "these" and "they are" with " the" and "it is" because of the fact that equipment is an uncountable noun?


Thanks.

[dragn]

It's tough for me to imagine any native speaker using highly in this sentence. I know I sure wouldn't. Reasonably is fine, however.

Highly expresses an extreme degree, and is used for many things:

--someone can be highly educated
--a substance can be highly explosive
--a situation can be highly volatile
--an incident can be highly irregular
--someone can be highly praised

However, saying something is highly close (with any meaning of the word close I can think of) just sounds wrong to me, although I admit I can't quite put my finger on the reason why it sounds wrong. Maybe someone else can shed a little more light on this.

As for the second question, it should read:

Ex. You should take good care of all the equipment, for it is so expensive.

Other slight variations are possible, but the point is that you must refer to equipment in the singular. You said it yourself--equipment is uncountable. If you need to refer to equipment in a countable sense, use a piece or pieces of equipment.

dragn

[jasonlulu_2000]

Thank you for your wonderful reply