You can but ask. However, I suspect that Tony's preference is biased more by
cultural factors than anything else. It's been my experience that Americans
are quite happy with "fast" in most contexts, while Brits (and their
antipodean cousins) prefer "quickly". The latter sounds 'plummy', the former
'scummy'. ;-D
--
Cheers!

Gordon Bentley-Mix
Word MVP

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"grammatim" wrote:

That's exactly the distinction I arrived at for "fast" vs. "quick
(ly)." It also fits Tony's intuition about something that "happens
quickly" rather than "happens fast" -- I wonder whether he could be
persuaded to come back and reconsider his rejection of "he ran fast."

On Feb 16, 3:43 pm, Gordon Bentley-Mix gordon(dot)bentleymix(at)gmail
(dot)com wrote:
Peter,

In my mind there is an extremely fine but important difference between
"fast" and "quick". Fast is related to top speed, whereas quick has more to
do with agility or acceleration.Therefore, while the two sentences are highly
similar, they are not identical.

As for my preference, it depends on what information is being requested. If
the question is about who had the greater maximum speed, then "faster" is the
logical choice. However, if the question is about who could reach a certain
speed soonest, then "quicker" wins. (Pun intended ;-P)

For example, the Bugatti Veyron is billed as being the fastest production
car in the world by virtue of its top speed approaching 300 km/h. However,
there are several production cars which reach 100 km/h in less time and,
therefore, are quicker.

Similarly, something like a Lotus Esprit could probably traverse a winding,
hilly route in less time than a Veyron, and in this instance, I would
classify the Esprit as quicker - although the Veyron is indisputably faster.

Don't you just *love* English? The subtleties are spectacular! No wonder
non-native speakers - no matter how well schooled - find it so difficult, and
software - no matter how well designed - struggles so much.

(Hmm... "software struggles"... is that correct? Word seems to think so.eg)
--
Cheers!

Gordon Bentley-Mix
Word MVP