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Here for the past 40,000 years, a deep fissure in the Earth's crust has allowed oily tar and methane to bubble up to the surface from far underground, evidence of the ceaseless activity below our very feet.

I found very feet in above sentence.

What is the difference between feet and very feet?

user10678
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4 Answers4

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When we say things like

Lead will be changed into gold before your very eyes.

and

The treasure was buried beneath our very feet.

and

The clue had been there all along, under our very noses.

the word very is a sort of emphatic to convey a sense of the remarkable; and it would mean "even as you look on" and "right where we were standing" and "there where we could have easily noticed it (but didn't)".

... the ceaseless activity below our very feet

would mean something like "the activity going on right below where we are standing".

What is being remarked upon is the immediacy of the thing.

TimR
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    In OP's specific context, that's *immediacy* in the slightly more metaphoric "spatial" sense of being *nearby* (as in *the immediate neighborhood). As opposed to what I would see as more "literal" (temporal) use of very* in something like At the very moment the golfer hit the ball, one of the onlookers sneezed and put him off his shot (emphatically at that exact time, not at that exact place). – FumbleFingers Jul 31 '17 at 14:24
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    Why do you think spatial metaphoric and temporal literal? That's the very question. – TimR Jul 31 '17 at 14:26
  • I think I "hedged" my assertions enough to indicate that I was expressing a personal opinion - that *immediately, for example, is much more likely to be used in the temporal sense of without delay* than the spatial sense of *with no intervening space* (or *intervening objects). I don't suggest your usage is incorrect - just that not all learners will necessarily be aware of immediacy* as a spatial reference. – FumbleFingers Jul 31 '17 at 14:34
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    As a non-native, I'm with @FumbleFingers here. I would replace the word "immediacy" with "vicinity" or "proximity". I've never heard the word "immediacy" before, and I would have guessed it has a temporal meaning, not a spatial one. – Fabio says Reinstate Monica Jul 31 '17 at 17:38
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    But spatial nearness or vicinity, @Fabio Turati, is not the meaning of "before your very eyes". Nor is it a temporal immediacy. It is another kind of immediacy. Also, your first action should be to look the word up in a good dictionary, not to tell me that I've chosen the wrong word. – TimR Jul 31 '17 at 17:53
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    I would say the immediacy is that of possession as in intimacy. – Aluan Haddad Jul 31 '17 at 18:22
  • @Tᴚoɯɐuo Sorry, I don't follow you. I actually agree with your answer, except for that last sentence. I did look up "immediacy": the OLD defines it as "the quality in something that makes it seem as if it is happening now, close to you, and is therefore important, urgent, etc.". So I'd say immediacy is about spatial or temporal vicinity! Isn't it? And the comment by the other user (who is also a native) reinforced this interpretation. – Fabio says Reinstate Monica Aug 02 '17 at 01:21
  • Moreover, all the examples that you gave are about a spatial context ("before our very eyes", "beneath", "under", and the OP's "below"). So, while I agree that «"vicinity" is not the meaning of "before your very eyes"», your last sentence made me think it. To the point that after reading it I had come to the conclusion that I had always misunderstood this usage of "very". Now I've done some more research, and I think my understanding was actually correct. That last sentence about the immediacy still confuses me, though. If you could explain what you meant, it would help me. Thank you! – Fabio says Reinstate Monica Aug 02 '17 at 01:22
  • @Fabio Turati. Immediacy is an abstraction, and so my explanation may seem rather abstract: it means not mediated by anything, not by space or distance, or by time, or by agent or means, or by an intervening cause or effect. It can refer to a rawness of perception by which the perceiver may know the verity of the thing. When we say "It is the very thing we need" we mean it is exactly what we need; there is nothing that separates it from the ideal solution. When we say "He's the very man for the job" we mean that he is perfectly suited to the job. Our very eyes behold the truth. – TimR Aug 02 '17 at 11:55
  • They are our own eyes that see the thing for what it is. – TimR Aug 02 '17 at 11:59
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Looking up very in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, you can see that very can be an adverb or adjective, and that as an adjective one of its senses is

3 —used as an intensive especially to emphasize identity · before my very eyes

The key word here is "emphasize": inserting the word very into the phrase "our feet" does not take away any of the meaning of that phrase, but draws attention to it.

David K
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It has no meaning in and of itself, it is used to provide emphasis.

The magician sawed a woman in half before our very eyes.

means the same thing as:

The magician sawed a woman in half before our eyes.

but the first sentence has a sense of astonishment.

In your sentence, the very is meant to convey wonder or surprise that something so shocking could be happening beneath us.

J.R.
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BI0SH0CK3D
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0

In 'Le Berbier de Seville' [Act 2 Scene 8] the phrase 'growing before your very eyes' dates this type of expression at least back to 1772, and in that same scene the words piano and pianissimo are used in their literal latin root sense to mean quietly.

Verum, veritas, and verily are all words closely related to very, and in the phrases 'he ate the very last cookie', and 'a place to call your very own', very means 'in truth' or 'really'. 'can I really keep it?' (the puppy) means 'confirm this is not a trick' or 'is it true i can keep it'.

so, before your very eyes, and beneath your very feet, seem to apply the sentiment of 'can it be true' by imitating the structure of those two phrases (very last, very own).

the proper way to phrase it would be 'very happening beneath your feet' (in truth, in reality)

but either by mistake or aesthetics 'happening beneath your very feet' won out over time and usage.

lpt
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