DAVID EDMONDS
What is the difference between “almost” and “nearly”? What rules dictate the selection of one word in a sentence rather than the other? You’re unlikely to know. And yet if you’re a native English speaker, you’ll almost certainly (as opposed to “nearly certainly”) be able to use the two words correctly. You might say: “I am not nearly as good at chess as I am at backgammon.” You wouldn’t say: “I am not almost as good at chess as I am at backgammon.”
Humans are unable to articulate fully many things that we manage to do quite well. The rules of language are one such thing. The game of chess is another. Some people play chess well, but don’t really understand how they do it. What makes Magnus Carlsen the best player in the world? Obviously, the 27-year-old Norwegian grandmaster possesses a superb memory, an ability to calculate ahead and highly-developed pattern recognition skills. But that is true of all the top players. His real edge remains a mystery—even to himself.