Examples of almost

These examples taken from the Bank of English corpus created by COBUILD at Birmingham University.

... although he has an opinion on them he has an opinion on almost everything), his interests are more protean and, indeed, Olympian in their capaciousness. `Why limit me," one can almost hear him thinking, `to one stage? Or page. Particularly since what he is about is making connections between different spheres, building bridges between the expected and the unexpected... [Notice that one can't actually hear him thinking.}
Like its predecessors, this new volume of the Pilgrim edition is a model of imaginative scholarship. It prints 1,324 letters, many previously unpublished, and it brings Dickens so close you can almost smell the cigar smoke. The magnificent footnotes (an absorbing read, even without the letters) unroll the whole cavalcade of contemporary life the authors and actresses, clubmen and courtiers...
... especially when the heroine returns to her village roots for sustenance from Mother Earth. In place of the usual gaudy caricatures, Almodovar's main characters almost appear to be real people and, as Leo and her new-found male friend, a roly-poly publisher, blend minds, hearts and, in some senses, genders, our own hearts are warmed. Almodovar still has his fun...[They almost appear...in other words, the author is not as skilled as he could be.]
... he was hurt by the reaction to her arrival in Argentina to make the biographical film. She said: 'Form your opinions after you have seen the movie.' She said that Peron, whom many Argentinians almost worship, had become a role model for her. 'I am full of admiration for her. She came from nothing to have such influence over the country.' Madonna's announcement, part publicity stunt...
... near-whore to something close to sainthood. We must defend our historical heritage," said Juan Carlos Gullo, a Peronist. 'The people who are making this film do not understand that this is almost religion. Can you imagine Madonna playing Mother Teresa of Calcutta?'
... Nobody asked to see my invitation, and I felt right at home as Patricia Rawlings and I are almost childhood friends from Gstaad. In the Land of the Freebie and Home of the Depraved, there would have been at least 40 American sumo lookalikes trying to intimidate people.[This probably means they are really friends, but they didn't meet until after they were no longer children; i.e., they were teenagers or older when they met].
... acts and dates describe is a catastrophic warping of values, a career of relentless success in Leighton's case and of relentless failure in Cezanne's. One of these artists achieved a position of almost absolute power in his nation's art firmament, and the other was forced to remain almost invisible in his. One became instantly valuable, yet achieved nothing of lasting value...
Like many of Mr Yeltsin's closest associates, Mr Tarpishchev's rise to power was almost accidental. The two met in 1988 when the President was abandoning his traditional loyalty to the good socialist team sport of volleyball in favour of the far more bourgeois pursuit of tennis.
... winter, down the northeast Atlantic fly way from the Nordic wastes, and from points as unimaginably east as the Taymyr Peninsula across the awful Siberian wilderness. By now, the roll call is almost complete, 10,000 birds cosily grazing the wide salt marshes at Slimbridge, rising occasionally for a fly-past like celebrities at an air show.
... The only requirement is that passengers stay at least one Saturday night or three other nights in Paris. The day return price remains at 95 pounds. The new fare, which is almost certain to be followed by further reductions this year as competition with the airlines intensifies, came the day after the start of Eurostar services from Ashford.

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