Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

be of some help / be of any help

1. which one is correct? “i am glad to be of some help or i am glad to be of any help?”

2. what`s different between them?

Submit Your Comment

or fill in the name and email fields below:

Comments

There's no real difference in meaning.

It's possible that "to be of some help" implies optimism (that you will likely be helpful) while "to be of any help" implies the possibility that maybe you will not be helpful at all.

It's more likely that speakers will use these without any sense of this distinction though.

amancalledj Nov-11-2008

11 votes   Permalink   Report Abuse

While there is some overlap, "any" and "some" don't mean exactly the same thing. They're both indeterminate amounts but any means any at all, even the smallest iota, while some is a more general non-specific amount. If it's something countable, then if you have exactly one, you don't have some, but you do have "any".

Usually, when some is used in a question, any is used in the negative answer: "Want some pizza?" "No thanks, I don't want any pizza." This illustrates exactly the point above.

Consider: "Have I been of any help?" (...at all? even the smallest amount? anything greater than none?) "Yes, you've been of some help" (some unspecified amount, NOT implied to be the least possible).

Practically speaking, both phrases in the original question express a similar sentiment, but do not have exactly the same meaning.

porsche Nov-11-2008

32 votes   Permalink   Report Abuse

Do you have a question? Submit your question here