Discussion
In the sentence below, a part is printed in bold. Choose the alternative that best replaces it. If no improvement is needed, choose ‘No correction required’.
Hardly had we started the journey than it began to rain heavily.
Answer: D
Correct answer: when
Hardly is completed by when, never by than. It is no sooner that takes than. The reason for the difference is grammatical rather than arbitrary: sooner is a comparative and comparatives are completed by than, whereas hardly and scarcely are not comparatives and take the temporal when. The sentence is otherwise correctly formed. Because it opens with the restrictive adverb hardly, the subject and auxiliary are inverted - had we started, not we had started - and the earlier of the two past actions takes the past perfect while the later takes the simple past. The full set of correct pairings is small: hardly…when, scarcely…when, barely…when, and no sooner…than. Learning them as pairs is the only reliable defence, since the ear accepts either.
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