Talk:Great Northern War plague outbreak

A fact from Great Northern War plague outbreak appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 30 August 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that a beak-shaped mask (pictured) did not save plague doctor Majus' life in the Great Northern War plague outbreak? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/August.

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In the interests of the English language I continually remove the word "likely" from contexts where it doesn't belong, such as :

This epidemic was likely part of a pandemic affecting an area from Central Asia to the Mediterranean.

The available terms are "possibly", "probably", "certainly" etc.

"Likely", despite the "ly" on the end, is the same part of speech as "probable" and "possible", not the same part of speech as "probably" and "possibly".

If you are going to use "likely" then the form is:

It is likely that this epidemic was part of a pandemic affecting an area from Central Asia to the Mediterranean.

So it's really much simpler to decide between the more descriptive words "possibly" and "probably".

(Yes, colloquial use does allow for "likely" as an adverb, but this is an encyclopedia.)

Amandajm (talk) 05:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a pretty comprehensive and well researched treatment of the subject. I suggest the author should nominate it at

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