Search results for 'tag:Plurals' matching tag 'Plurals'

Re: correct my sentence

poci_wasiats — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:12:50 GMT

Is it advisable to add 'the'?

I would avoid that by

A company should prepare everything before implementing a new system to prevent any contingencies.

A company should prepare everything before implementing a new system to prevent any contingencies. << i think it's correct because you just put a system,but

A company should prepare everything before implementing the new systems to prevent any contingencies. << plural...

Re: Problem with There's, there aren't + some/any

Anonymous — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:35:21 GMT

I come across this problem too while teaching that structure in the classroom for biginners. But at the end I think that the rule is as follows: any is used for negative plural , and plural interrogative

while some is used for plural affirmative form and it is used in case of uncountables.ok here are some eg.

*are there any curtains in the living room?

*yes, there are some.

*no, there aren't any.

for uncountables: for eg.

* would like some tea? *there is some bread = we cannot say there is a bread. that is why it is used even with uncountables .

By YOUSSEF BEN.

Re: MM's 10-letter word

Mister Micawber — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:30:08 GMT

.
This Free Dictionary link says nothing about 'casket' being a pure Americanism, though the on-line Oxford says that it is 'chiefly N. American'. It is dangerous to be absolute in your language statements, because it takes only a bit of googling of .uk websites to find examples of caskets as containers for dead people in BrE.

Those of your items which are not containers, are they purely decorative? â I cannot account for all their purposes, which are myriad.
How expensive are they? â I have no idea. Not very, I suppose, generally. I think that they come in a wide range of prices, though.
Do you have one of them? â Yes indeed. There is a small one sitting in front of me, whence my word choice.
You mean wood, not a derivative of it, like parer or cardboard, right? â Yes, that's right.

Â«One of each of the paired letters are in each element of the word.Â»
The word has two elements and there're three repeating letters in it, so what do you mean? That two of the letters are also paired, like in "hassle"?â That's not what I intended, There are simply "ten letters, three of which are represented twice". I can tell you that no pair member is juxtaposed to its mate. And as I said, a member of one pair begins each of the two word elements.

But now I have to revise one clueâ the word transmogrified during this thread and I got the second component wrong in my head. Serves me right for not writing the word down.

REVISED CLUE ABOUT THE SECOND COMPONENT (PLEASE DISCARD THE OLD CLUE):

The word as a whole remains uncountable. but the second component is also normally uncountable when it stands alone (NOT countable and plural as I stated earlier.... although it can be....)

Aargh. OKâ free clues in atonement: It is trisyllabic and traditionally of the genus Salix.

Re: correction 2

New2grammar — Thu, 15 May 2008 06:52:39 GMT

Amy and I left for the mall at 7 to get James a birthday cake. It was his 35th birthday. At the bakery shop, we had a hard time choosing from a wide selection of cakes. When I agreed to pick up a cake, I had thought it was a 20 minute (Is it missing an S?I was told not to use the plural when it functions as an adjective, a five minute break) job including the travel time, tops.

There were blueberry cake with chocolate truffle filling, vanilla iced;[Must I use a comma?I thought semicolon helped to avoid confusion in a list that contains commas (in this case, there's a comma between filling and vanilla iced) tiramisu with chocolate shavings, key lime torte dipped in truffle chocolate, just to name a few. After 20 minutes of dilemma, we bought the key lime torte because I loved keylimes (Must I use the plural? I would like to say I love keylime flavor, can't I use the singular?). One the way home, we got involved in a traffic accident. We weren't injured but the cake wasn't that lucky.

Thanks MM for pointing out my mistakes. However, I still can't figure out what's wrong with some of them.

Re: sequel to noun?

Avangi — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:04:37 GMT

I think the key is in the word "different," which can be used in at least two ways. "Her approach to the problem was quite different." AND "Different strokes for different folks." Why can't you say, "Different stroke for different folk,"? You could say "I decided to try a different stroke," but it's definitely countable. It's this second usage of "different" that makes it countable. You could not say, "I decided to try some different stroke." It would have to be plural. "I decided to try some different strokes."

You could say, "I decided to try some different paint, or some different makeup. This would be uncountable. If we say "I decided to try some different paints," (I'm an artist) I mean different from the ones I was using before, not different from each other.

In your "example to compare," you use "some/a lot of" which are used to describe both/either countables or uncountables. Different, in the original sentence, is only used for countables.

I admit it does seem complicated, and my explanation is not as clear as I'd like it to be. "Strokes" is a bad example, because it's only countable.

- A.

Re: These dictionary files were not deleted along with other files because...

Marius Hancu — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:16:24 GMT

Using plural nouns as adjectives is generally avoided, though possible.

You're talking mainly about the type of files, not about their multitude, thus indicating that they are in several places is less significant.

levels of unemployment

sebayanpendam — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:17:20 GMT

Dear gurus,

Can you explain why the word 'level' in this sentence i.e. '.... relatively low levels of unemployment' is plural?

Thanks.

Re: Plural surname

Grammar Geek — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:46:03 GMT

Anonymous

Do you believe the same pattern is true for the surname Jacobs? Is the plural Jacobses or Jacobss (the double ss for a plural spelling popped up when I Googled it).

Seriously? Do you know of any word in the language that ends in S in which we make it a plural by adding another s?

The only ones I saw were Jacobs's.

Tim Jacobs's house is the last one on the street.

Re: Plural surname

Anonymous — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:35:03 GMT

Do you believe the same pattern is true for the surname Jacobs? Is the plural Jacobses or Jacobss (the double ss for a plural spelling popped up when I Googled it).

Re: corpus/corpora - ethymology

Tanit — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:20:44 GMT

Hi,

The short answer would be: such question are dangerous, try and learn them by heart!
The long answer is: in Latin, they have different inflected forms because they belong to two different "classes": 2nd declension and 3rd declension:

Fungus (same inflected forms in "cactus"): 2nd declension
    Nominative: (singular) fungus => (plural) fungi
    Genitive: (singular) fungi => (plural) fungorum
    Dative: (singular) fungo => (plural) fungis
    Accusative: (singular) fungum => (plural) fungos
    Vocative: (singular) funge => (plural) fungi
    Ablative: (singular) fungo => (plural) fungis

Corpus : 3rd declension
    Nominative: (singular) corpus => (plural) corpora
    Genitive: (singular) corporis => (plural) corporum
    Dative: (singular) corpori => (plural) corporibus
    Accusative: (singular) corpus => (plural) corpora
    Vocative: (singular) corpus => (plural) corpora
    Ablative: (singular) corpore => (plural) corporibus

Now, have a look at the nominative case:
fungus >> fungi
cactus >> cacti
corpus >> corpora