Re: The word, "information"

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Anonymous  #217887  Thu, 20 Apr 06 05:04 AM
How is it that the word "information" can be singular or plural in context, but always takes the singular verb "is"? Also, why is its plural  not  "informations"?





  
Grammar Geek  #217896  Thu, 20 Apr 06 05:24 AM
Can you give an example of when you've seen "information" as a plural?
  
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milky  #217929  Thu, 20 Apr 06 07:49 AM

 Anonymous wrote:
How is it that the word "information" can be singular or plural in context, but always takes the singular verb "is"? Also, why is its plural  not  "informations"?





"Information" is seen as an entity or whole (undivided and uncountable), therefore singular. It doesn't have a plural form because it doesn't. It's that simple.

  
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paco2004  #217932  Thu, 20 Apr 06 07:57 AM
You can get many informations in France or in Spain, but you can get only information in Britain and in the United States. Why? I don't know.

paco 
  
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milky  #217945  Thu, 20 Apr 06 08:20 AM

 Anonymous wrote:
How is it that the word "information" can be singular or plural in context, but always takes the singular verb "is"? Also, why is its plural  not  "informations"?





See this page for info on uncountable nouns:

[link]

  
Gazapo  #217973  Thu, 20 Apr 06 09:36 AM
 Paco2004 wrote:
You can get many informations in France or in Spain, but you can get only information in Britain and in the United States. Why? I don't know.

paco 


As someone above stated, information is seen as a whole. Like a family consisting of four people, information can consist of 200 brochures, etc. You could make it more powerful by saying "much information" or, depending on formality, "a ton of information", meaning a lot. Just use "much" "little", etc. to state comparisons  and such.

You can get a lot of information in France or in Spain, but you can get very little information in Britain and in the United States.
  
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