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Maximally vs. maximum

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WRONG: When I go to the pub, I drink maximally three beers.
RIGHT: When I go to the pub, I drink three beers maximum.

If a man says, „When I go to the pub, I drink maximally three beers“ he is almost certainly lying. He probably drinks double that, plus a couple of shots! But if he says it, he is also making a language mistake.

In English, we don’t use the word ‘maximally’, we just use the word ‘maximum’ and usually after the noun as in the example – „When I go to the pub, I drink three beers maximum.“

The same is true of minimum too. We would say, „I will stay one hour minimum“, not „minimally one hour“.

If a man says, „He is staying in the pub one hour minimum“, he is not lying. But he’ll probably be there all night!

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