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Please teach me the difference that the word ever makes in below-mentioned sentences.

  1. Nobody speaks with me.
  2. Nobody ever speaks with me.

Thanks in advance.

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  • Existing answers notwithstanding, for most purposes, including the word "ever" in constructions like OP's makes no significant difference. It just looks that way because when we see the word ever highlighted as above, we can't really avoid "hearing" it as having heavy stress. If the word isn't stressed, including it in such utterances is usually just a stylistic choice on the part of the speaker, with no special semantic significance.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 19:01

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Tricky question.

I'll start with Sentence 2:

Nobody ever speaks with me.

This means that nobody speaks with me at any time.

Now, Sentence 1:

Nobody speaks with me.

This means that nobody ever speaks with me.

In short, when the sentences are parsed and analyzed, they pretty much mean the same thing – in the word-by-word literal sense.

However, let's dig a little deeper. Who would ever say such a thing? A monk in a monastary with a vow of silence? (The monk might write it down, but he probably shouldn't say it aloud). A child at school feeling lonely or bullied? That's what I'd be inclined to think.

In that case, is the sentence even true? Surely somebody speaks with the child every now and then. Parents, siblings, teachers, waiters at the restaurant, etc. So, is the child telling a lie? What does it REALLY mean?

I suspect it really means something along these lines:

Hardly anyone ever seems to speak with me, insofar as friends at school go.

I suspect that's the true meaning of the sentence.

If that's the case, I think ever is being used in the sense of Definition #4 at Oxford:

ever (adv.) used for emphasis in questions expressing astonishment or outrage: who ever heard of a grown man being frightened of the dark?

That is, the inclusion of ever is simply a way to make the assertion more emphatic.

One could also argue that the inclusion of words like ever or never also causes a slight shift in emphasis, by introducing an element of time into the assertion:

Jones, no useful findings have come out of your experiments.

Jones, no useful findings have ever come out of your experiments.

Again, there's no reason to think there's any difference in meaning, but the second sentence makes it seem like the experiments have been going on for a long time, and still nothing useful has been found.

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    Similar to emphasis, "ever" is often used for exaggeration: "Nobody ever comes to my parties" - maybe one or two people have over the years, but the person is emphasizing with exaggeration. Same with "never": "I never get to have fun" is probably an exaggeration.
    – nxx
    Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 12:44
  • WOW, Thank you for you detailed answer. It was very helpful.
    – user3214
    Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 13:39
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Oxford explains it -

Adverb 'ever' (when used in a negative way) means: at any time.

So, nobody speaks with you means nobody speaks with you (maybe, at this time or from some time). When you add 'ever', it means nobody at any given point of time, speaks with you.

Mind it, ever also means all the time but not in this context.

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  • That explains the meaning of ever, but I don't think it explains the difference in meaning. "Nobody speaks with me" does NOT mean "People speak with me sometimes."
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 11:20
  • @J.R. I NEVER said that! I said from some time.
    – Maulik V
    Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 11:35

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