Search results for 'tag:Plurals tag:British English' matching tags 'Plurals' and 'British English'

A head for figures?

Stenka25 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:10:54 GMT

StartFragment>

In 'figure' article in a dicitonary, 'a head for figures' come up two times and

6 figures [plural] British English :the activity of adding, multiplying etc numbers [= arithmetic]

â¢ a natural ability with figures

8 a person in a painting or a model of a person:

â¢ the figure in the background

â¢ A Head for Figures

I want to know what 'a head for figures' means?

It seems like the meaning of the expression can be 'be good at arithmetic' in meaning six. But in meaning eight I cannot figure out what the 'a head for figures' refers to. Does it still mean 'be good at arithmetic'?

Thanks in advance.

A head for figures?

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:07:39 GMT

StartFragment>

In 'figure' article in a dicitonary, 'a head for figures' come up two times and

6 figures [plural] British English :the activity of adding, multiplying etc numbers [= arithmetic]

â¢ a natural ability with figures

8 a person in a painting or a model of a person:

â¢ the figure in the background

â¢ A Head for Figures

I want to know what 'a head for figures' means?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Standard spoken English

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:00:04 GMT

Something to chew on:

THE NOTION OF STANDARD SPOKEN GRAMMAR

The term âstandard grammarâ is most typically associated with written language,
and is usually considered to be characteristic of the recurrent usage of adult,
educated native speakers of a language. Standard grammar ideally reveals no
particular regional bias. Thus âStandard British Englishâ grammar consists of items
and forms that are found in the written usage of adult educated native speakers
from Wales, Scotland and England and those Northern Irish users who consider
themselves part of the British English speech community.

The typical sources of evidence for standard usage are literary texts, quality
journalism, academic and professional writing, etc. Standard grammar is given the
status of the official record of educated usage by being written down in grammar
books and taught in schools and universities.

Spoken transcripts often have frequent occurrences of items and structures
considered incorrect according to the norms of standard written English. However,
many such forms are frequently and routinely used by adult, educated native speakers.

Examples of such structures are split infinitives (e.g. We decided to immediately sell it),
double negation (e.g. He wonât be late I donât think, as compared to I donât think he will
be late), singular nouns after plural measurement expressions (e.g. Heâs about six foot
tall), the use of contracted forms such as gonna (going to), wanna (want to), and so on.

Standard spoken English grammar will therefore be different from standard
written English grammar in many respects if we consider âstandardâ to be a
description of the recurrent spoken usage of adult native speakers. What may be
considered ânon-standardâ in writing may well be âstandardâ in speech.
Speech and writing are not independent. Although some forms of spoken
grammar do not appear in writing (unless in written dialogues), there is
considerable overlap and there is an increasing range of forms appearing in
informal written texts which previously were only considered acceptable in
speech. In 120 the presence of typically spoken grammatical forms contexts as emails and internet chat-room exchanges is discussed.

From: The Cambridge Grammar of English (GCE)

Re: would

Mr Wordy — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:26:48 GMT

A) By June, her diet was limited to bread and water. Anything else would induce the abdominal pain.

I haven't studied English grammar as systematically as you probably have, but to me the sense is 3 (repetition in the past). Look at this alternative:

B) By June, her diet was limited to bread and water. Anything else induced the abdominal pain.

This means that if she ate anything else then she got the pain. If sentence B already means this, then what is the word "would" doing in sentence A? It can only be giving us the sense that this event had happened a number of times, and, presumably, that this is how she discovered that it induced the pain.

Part 2

1 in 10 Asians are infected with ...

This is an old "chestnut" (something that is debated over and over). My (British English) opinion is that "1 in 10 Asians are" is more natural (though I do not think "is" is incorrect). The plural "are" agrees "in spirit" with the subject, which obviously refers to many people, rather than needing to literally agree with "one". Others may take a different view.

Re: pages/amount

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:21:15 GMT

In British English p. stands for 'page' and pp. 'for pages', so Ant is correct when he says that the plural of p. is pp. Here is an example from a book, and below the definition from a dictionary.

p (PAGE) noun [ C ] plural pp
WRITTEN ABBREVIATION FOR page (PAPER)
See p. 27.
The references are on pp. 256-264.

Re: treat this as singular or plural?

Kooyeen — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:05:02 GMT

Hi Awence,
yes, you can say "a drug", or "several drugs". With plurals you use a plural verb in those kinds of structures:
Some of the drugs are dangerous. One half of the drugs are dangerous. Fifty percent of the drugs are dangerous.
MrP's example was different... It shows you could say "parents" could take a singular verb: Parents is not spelled parence.

By the way, I just remembered there might also be some differences between American and British English regarding plural vs singular verbs.

Re: Can 'a list' be represented by plural pronoun?

Cool Breeze — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:54:47 GMT

Hi Stenka

People may say what you have written in casual speech but them is not good English in this context. Put [the] things/items in order would be better. In British English it is very common to use a plural pronoun or verb to refer to a whole that consists of many people even though the actual subject is singular. Some examples:

England are winning the match.

The crew were on board.

Re: A group of students - number confusion

Kooyeen — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:59:24 GMT

I would have used the plural for both verbs. I was told people say "A group of children are playing", not "is playing".
I think "group" is a collective noun, and in American English it's singular: "The team is ready". In British English you might hear "The team are ready", but not in AmE.
But when collective nouns are modified by plural nouns, then everything tends to agree with the plural nouns.

So this thread really confused me... what do you guys think?

Re: In the garden is/are a cat, a dog, and a rabit.

Yoong Liat — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 06:43:27 GMT

Hi Teo

I hope the following will be helpful.

In BrE, it should be There is a cat and a dog.

Below is the information extracted from two books on English usage. The first book is on British English usage, the second on American English usage.

'The Right Word at the Right Time' states as follows:

There is an apple and pears for dessert.

There are apples and a pear for dessert.

'Merriam-Webster 'Guide to English Usage' states as follows:

When a compound subject follows the verb and the first element is singular, the verb may be either singular or plural.

There is a lake and several small streams.

There are a dog and a few cats in the house.

The singular construction is more common. Still, some writers insist on formal agreement and use a plural verb: There were an apartment house and a parking lot at the end of the block.

Best regards

Re: correct sentence??

Ruslana — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 10:29:06 GMT

From answers.com:

Speakers of some vernacular American dialects, particularly in the South, may use the possessive reflexive form hisself instead of himself (as in He cut hisself shaving) and theirselves or theirself for themselves (as in They found theirselves alone). These forms reflect the tendency of speakers of vernacular dialects to regularize irregular patterns found in the corresponding standard variety. In Standard English, the pattern of reflexive pronoun forms shows slightly irregular patterning; all forms but two are composed of the possessive form of the pronoun and âself or âselves, as in myself or ourselves. The exceptions are himself and themselves, which are formed by attaching the suffix âself/âselves to the object forms of he and they rather than their possessive forms. Speakers who use hisself and theirselves are smoothing out the pattern's inconsistencies by applying the same rule to all forms in the set. â¢ A further regularization is the use of âself regardless of number, yielding the forms ourself and theirself. Using a singular form in a plural context may seem imprecise, but the plural meaning of ourself and theirself is made clear by the presence of the plural forms ourâ and theirâ. Hisself and theirselves have origins in British English and are still prevalent today in vernacular speech in England.

I'm for the Standard English.