ESL Linguistics Discussion Forum

Re: some few

Marvin A. — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 18:27:22 GMT

EDIT: didn't see post above.

Re: some few

milky — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 17:58:00 GMT

<Is this what might be the closest thing English has to an equivalent of the Académie française? >

Not at all.

Here:

The British National Corpus (BNC) is a 100 million word collection of samples of written and spoken language from a wide range of sources, designed to represent a wide cross-section of current British English, both spoken and written. [more]

Re: some few

Philip — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 17:20:51 GMT

Milky wrote:
Philip wrote:
Nona The Brit wrote:

The Oxford English dictionary lists some few (some few some but not many) but I don't think I have ever seen or heard it used.

It makes sense, I know I've come across it, but it sounds archaic to me (perhaps haughty as well).

The British National Corpus lists it as mostly used in the Academic and Fiction registers. It hardly appears in spoken British English.

Is this what might be the closest thing English has to an equivalent of the Académie française?

Re: some few

milky — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:58:03 GMT

As with much formal language.

Re: some few

MrPedantic — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 12:38:16 GMT

I wouldn't like to trust my recollections, on this one. But I don't have much success if I try to imagine friends, etc. saying it. So I don't think it can be a common phrase.

MrP

Re: some few

milky — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 09:20:55 GMT

Is it used in your variant, Mr P?

Re: some few

MrPedantic — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:40:29 GMT

I don't find it entirely alien. It turns up in literary contexts, as mentioned, e.g.

Bacon: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention."

Trollope: "Outside the gate on the road were drawn up a variety of vehicles, open carriages, dogcarts, gigs, and waggonettes, in some few of which were seated ladies who had come over to see the meet."

Austen: "The Allens, Thorpes, and Morlands all met in the evening at the theatre; and, as Catherine and Isabella sat together, there was then an opportunity for the latter to utter some few of the many thousand things which had been collecting within her for communication in the immeasurable length of time which had divided them."

Gilbert White: "The most intelligent shepherds tell me that some few of these birds appear on the downs in March, and then withdraw to breed probably in warrens and stone-quarries..."

MrP

Re: some few

milky — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:08:17 GMT

Philip wrote:
Nona The Brit wrote:

The Oxford English dictionary lists some few (some few some but not many) but I don't think I have ever seen or heard it used.

It makes sense, I know I've come across it, but it sounds archaic to me (perhaps haughty as well).

The British National Corpus lists it as mostly used in the Academic and Fiction registers. It hardly appears in spoken British English.

Re: some few

Philip — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 17:04:22 GMT

Nona The Brit wrote:

The Oxford English dictionary lists some few (some few some but not many) but I don't think I have ever seen or heard it used.

It makes sense, I know I've come across it, but it sounds archaic to me (perhaps haughty as well).

Re: some few

milky — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 13:21:54 GMT

Marvin A. wrote:
In my dialect, that would be grammatically incorrect. I've never heard that construction before.

Just found these in the BNC:

LIMIT BY PART OF SPEECH: NO LIMIT BY GENRE: NO (HELP)

1 A05 skills as a chemist --; kept you going and, in some few cases, made you free. But most of those who stayed

2 ABM of Natural Reason into something worthwhile. But, with some few exceptions, the main results had been disputatious wrangling. The natural

3 ABM such as "Space, Time, and Infinity, and some few others". Besides being good test cases, Locke obviously finds

4 ALL Paisley, Trenton, Washington … it's self-evident. Some few may write a Declaration, others may sign it, but they

5 ANR . But it was not going to be easy; some few years after Malmesbury's comments another accredited diplomat noted à propos of an

6 B0G attendant customs largely died out through the l9th Century, some few lingering into the 20th. The stern Quaker historian of Liskeard,

7 B1F joys known to man. The same experience comes from some few words of a poet or a mystic; it is as if the

8 CJD beneath it, it may be many miles deep or some few fathoms shallow. It invariably supports an unimaginably vast quantity of living

9 CJF that the road was coming up in the world. Some few still showed the tell-tale signs of multiple occupation, dishevelled lawns,

10 CJF ." "He had political enemies, obviously. Some few from his own party, no doubt. But none as far as

11 CMP break the glittering ball into dark fragments, yet still some few couples could not bear to relinquish the last moments of peace.

12 CRX it is "known with clarity and precision only by some few thinking men in every nation and every age" (p. 64

13 CRX --; full rational insight had only been achieved by "some few thinking men in every nation in every age". The source

14 CS2 which we tend to think of as good there are some few things which are more easily conceived in abstraction from any larger social

15 CTW the fifteenth century. It was also carried on in some few villages: fulling mills operated at East Hendred, near Wantage,

Re: some few

milky — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:01:37 GMT

Marvin A. wrote:
In my dialect, that would be grammatically incorrect. I've never heard that construction before.

See post to Nona.

Re: some few

milky — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:01:05 GMT

Nona The Brit wrote:

The Oxford English dictionary lists some few (some few some but not many) but I don't think I have ever seen or heard it used.

It is used in West African English, but I don't know where else.

Re: some few

Marvin A. — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:31:25 GMT

In my dialect, that would be grammatically incorrect. I've never heard that construction before.

Re: some few

nona the brit — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:00:16 GMT

The Oxford English dictionary lists some few (some few some but not many) but I don't think I have ever seen or heard it used.

Re: some few

milky — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 15:42:16 GMT

Mithunbarik wrote:
I did not use it ( English is ESL for me)

OK. Thanks.