"Likely" means pretty. All these ads for "very likely" adolescent girls make it especially clear that sexual abuse of enslaved children was a marketing opportunity, not a secret. This was a century before the Civil War. https://t.co/aw66qrf9j6

— Eileen Gunn (@eileen_gunn) December 19, 2018

Wrong.

While there was undoubtedly sexual abuse of enslaved children commonly, “very likely” does not mean “pretty” in this instance or in most (or perhaps any) ads for slaves from this period. In this sense “very likely” means more “pleasant” somewhat in the sense of appearance but also in the sense of presentation up to and including manner of speaking. It was not connotatively or denotatively referring to appearance in any sexual sense. Today, we’d say someone is “very presentable” or “comes off well” or something of that nature instead of “likely.”

You can see this easily by observing that many ads for older slaves, including men, also used “likely” and “very likely” in the same context.

People need to do more research before they spout off some ill-educated garbage. Bothers me to no end.