most everything

[sunsunmoon]

Deaths, tsunamis feared as massive quake hits Japan - CNN.com
"I wasn't scared when it started ... but it just kept going and going," said Michelle Gates, who lives in central Tokyo. "I won't lie, it was quite scary. But we are all OK. We live on the third floor, so most everything shook and shifted."

Did Michelle Gates mean "almost everything"?

[susiedqq]

Yes, either could be used to describe that not everything appeared to "shake", but it was very near every thing.

[JMurray]

Thinking that this use of "most" as a synonym for "almost" is a predominantly US one, I checked the Cambridge Online (I've been caught out before).
They say:
most
mainly US informal – almost
You'll find her in the bar most every evening about six o'clock.

In the past I only ever heard it on US TV and film etc, or when speaking to an American, but I think it is becoming more common generally.

not a teacher

[Coolfootluke]

Thinking that this use of "most" as a synonym for "almost" is a predominantly US one, I checked the Cambridge Online (I've been caught out before).
They say:
most
mainly US informal – almost
You'll find her in the bar most every evening about six o'clock.

In the past I only ever heard it on US TV and film etc, or when speaking to an American, but I think it is becoming more common generally.

not a teacher

I am not a teacher.

That "most" is pure Davy Crockett around here (Middle Atlantic, USA), and, I suspect, in all of the Northeast, at least. It has a frontier tang to it. I would tell ESLers to eschew it if I were a teacher.

[sunsunmoon]

Thank you, everyone.

I'm wondering what "pure Davy Crockett," which Coolfootluke said, means. Please go to THIS THREAD.

[probus]

No it doesn't mean very common.

I think what Coolfootluke meant by pure Davy Crockett was old fashioned, archaic, especially in an American frontier context. Certainly not heard today.

[5jj]

Davy Crockett was an American frontiersman. He was renowned for his 'tall talk', a colourful style of language that was very different from what would have been considered refined language.

Here is an example of Crockett's language:

There is times that come upon us like a whirlwind and an airthquake; they are come like a caramount on the full jump! We are called upon to show our grit like a chain lightning agin a pine log. to exterminate, mollify and calumniate the foe. Pierce the heart of your enemy as you would a feller that spit in your face, knocked down yer wife, burnt up your horses and called your dog a skunk. Cram his pesky carcase full of thunder and lightning like a stuffed sessidge and turtle him off with a old hot poker so that there won’t be a piece of him left big enough to give a cow a breakfast and bit his nose off into the bargain…

Quoted in Bragg, Melvyn (2003) The Adventure of English, London: Hodder & Stoughton.