"Can easily be" vs. "can be easily" — what's the difference?

Question

I'm wondering what the difference is between:

It can easily be obtained.

It can be easily obtained.

Also, what's the preferred way to write it? If there is any...

I googled for both options between quotes and it returned almost the same result (38 million for "can be easily" and 34 million for "can easily be"), so statistically both have similar usage from the people.

Edit: fixed the second point which I had mistyped as "it easily can be obtained".

score 18 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 28 '22 at 21:08

18

I would go with "it can be easily obtained".

"It can easily be obtained" sounds fine, too, but "it easily can be obtained" doesn't. The complete Google stats look as follows:

Searching the British National Corpus returns these results:

it can easily be — 40
it can be easily — 20
it easily can be — 0

edited Jan 28 '22 at 21:08

Libavius

153

answered Oct 14 '10 at 12:25

RegDwigнt

97,231

My bad! I was refering to "can be easily" and "can easily be". Sorry, I modify my question. Anyway, thanks for the answer! I think in the British National Corpus we must substract the results for "it can easily be." (notice the period) just to avoid counting the use at the end of sentence, right? – Alejandro Cámara Oct 14 '10 at 15:41
Nothing found with the ending period... – Alejandro Cámara Oct 14 '10 at 15:45
I suggest you repeat the stats-finding operation; things seem to have changed drastically over the last seven years. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 13 '17 at 15:20
2

Those stats above are very different to those that I get: 1) "it can be easily obtained" gives me 846.000 results while 2) "it can easily be obtained" gives me almost 10 million! Thus, I am very much in favor of the 2nd option. Furthermore, it seems more consistent with the rule of putting an adverb directly after an auxiliary verb in mid position or not? – exchange Jun 10 '19 at 12:14
I am unable to understand the correct way to write when "easily" is replaced by "only". In that case, which rule should I use? It would make my life easier if both these cases follow the same rule. Kindly guide me. – Ombrophile Feb 22 '21 at 15:31

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 04 '13 at 14:41

0

Isn't easily describing the action of obtaining? How do you easily "be" anything? And "can be obtained" is just passive and awkward. If you must keep it, then say "It can be easily obtained." But a better way to say it is "You can easily obtain...". It avoids the passivity and solves the problem.

edited Apr 04 '13 at 14:41

RegDwigнt

97,231

answered Apr 04 '13 at 13:47

Patrice

11

1

What’s to be gained by “avoiding the passivity”? – tchrist Apr 04 '13 at 14:06
4

Awkward is in the eye of the beholder. I don't find "can be obtained" awkward in the least, and grammatically it is completely unexceptional. So both subjectively and objectively, "avoiding passivity" in this case is a clear hypercorrection. More to the point, though, you only "solve the problem" by creating a different problem. Who is that you you are talking about? It's likely not to fit the context at all, and you will have to reword the entire rest of the text accordingly. (Which is precisely why passive voice exists in the first place, to elegantly avoid that.) – RegDwigнt Apr 04 '13 at 14:49

score -3 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 10 '13 at 11:51

-3

I think it is can easily be. Because once I read that we can use an adverb between two auxiliary verbs.

edited Jan 10 '13 at 11:51

Robusto

151,571

answered Jan 10 '13 at 11:30

abdul naeem

1

It easily can be either. It can easily be either. – Matt E. Эллен Jan 10 '13 at 11:38
@MattЭллен Easily can it be either. It can be either easily. – tchrist Apr 04 '13 at 15:10

"Can easily be" vs. "can be easily" — what's the difference?

3 Answers3

Linked