21
votes
Why a "100% chance" of rain?
This is an excellent illustration of the difference between "subjective probability" ("credence") and "objective" or "frequentist probability" ("chance&...
- 19.6k
9
votes
What does “a couple” mean to you, and what does “a few” mean to you?
To add to the already excellent qualitative answers, one can do a quantitative analysis, asking people a number that one might apply to each. Such an experiment has been done:
(note the sparsely ...
- 72.1k
9
votes
Accepted
Does "much of a (countable noun)" mean the same as "much (countable noun)?"
First, please note that your expressions should include not, and that:
in (a) much is a pronoun and choice is a countable noun.
in (b) much is an adjective, but this time choice is an uncountable ...
- 37k
7
votes
Why a "100% chance" of rain?
A 100% chance means it is certain, so it is not really 'chance' in that case.
Well, as a matter of fact, it is. The "chance" should be considered as a unit of likelihood, which ranges from &...
- 46.4k
6
votes
Which is correct: "one or more is" or "one or more are"?
According to The Copyeditor's Handbook, SUBJECT-VERB-AGREEMENT, rule#18, page#345;
One or more x. The expression one or more always takes a plural verb.
One or more files are missing.
One or more of ...
- 372
6
votes
Accepted
"All" followed by "of + pronoun"?
These are implicit partitives where a quantity has been established and now all with understood of... establishes which part of that quantity is meant.
However, we seldom have all with an implicit ...
- 11.1k
5
votes
Quantifiers realised by a noun?
This type of string is often called a pseudo-partitive construction. (A true partitive looks the same, but shows a partition, a subset: a half of the money, a piece of the cake.)
From an article by in ...
- 87.2k
4
votes
Accepted
"He's good police"
He's good police.
This is a variation on the more common:
He's good people.
There is already an English.SE answer that addresses "good people". An excerpt from the answer:
This is an ...
- 7,813
4
votes
Accepted
Romeo and Juliet "Which then most sought where most might not be found"
“I, measuring his affections by my own, which then
most sought where
most
might not be found, being one too many by my weary self, pursued
my humor not pursuing his, and gladly shunned who ...
- 6,109
4
votes
Is there an Infix phrase for "any of x are y" in the english language?
I'd have commented, rather than answered, but I don't have that privilege. So, a suggestion:
If you accept "…if the tree's leaves are all green" for "x are all y", then you could ...
- 67
4
votes
"For every variable x and y" or "For every variables x and y"?
"every" is an indefinite pronoun and takes a singular noun.
e.g; Every man and woman participated in the game.
So, " for every variable "x" and "y" is the correct ...
4
votes
How are the negative quantifiers "not many/not a lot of" interpreted?
The Cambridge page you cite isn't actually claiming that "not many" means "almost none." Instead, it's saying that "few" can mean either "not many" or "...
- 19.6k
4
votes
The human body is 60% water. (60% quantifier float?)
This is not a case of floating quantifier according to "FLOATING QUANTIFIERS, PARTITIVES AND DISTRIBUTIVITY
Jack Hoeksema
University of Groningen".
The general distribution of floating ...
- 23.9k
3
votes
"He's good police"
Great question! I also haven’t been able to find any use “in the wild” from a quick Google search. There are examples in literature, but it doesn't seem to show up in books that were published before ...
- 84.5k
3
votes
"1 in 10 are" or "1 in 10 is"?
I searched the New York Times's database for the phrase "one in ten" (note, the numbers are written as words), excluding modal and regular verbs used in the past tense that do not differentiate ...
- 92.9k
3
votes
Why is a singular verb "is" used after "One-third of the population" while a plural verb "live" is used after "70 percent of the population"?
The earlier answer by dz420 seems to have identified the reason for the difference, which I shall only try to explain in a little more detail, and illustrate with a few examples.
Words like 'X ...
- 7,392
3
votes
Do native speakers actually "feel" the difference between the following sentences?
The examples given in CED need more context to clarify the claims made in the dictionary.
There's a reading of [B], as I think Global implies, in the context:
["But I was hearing that the 'Purple ...
- 87.2k
3
votes
Accepted
The multiple meanings of "any" in different circumstances
The first thing to know about any is that it's a Negative Polarity Item. That means it's got weird grammar and semantics, and is part of a lot of idioms, so one can't make assumptions about what it ...
- 109k
3
votes
How to quantify "hash browns"
Hash browns come in either shaped individual patty things, or as a sort of dollop or clump of fried potato gratings.
In the patty case they are clearly countable: plural as in "a side order of ...
- 1,161
2
votes
"There is" or "There are" a large quantity of people?
I thought this excerpt from Oxford Dictionaries was instructive:
Although the expression ‘a number’ is strictly singular, the phrase ‘a number of’' is used with plural nouns (as what grammarians call ...
- 21
2
votes
Quantifiers and nouns
(Context for others: The Least Common Multiple is also known as the Lowest Common Multiple. It is the term for the lowest non-zero number which has two particular factors. For example, the LCM of 3 ...
- 1,093
2
votes
Why is a singular verb "is" used after "One-third of the population" while a plural verb "live" is used after "70 percent of the population"?
The word population is a collective noun that can take either a singular or plural verb, depending on the intention of the author. The intention in the first sentence is to indicate population as a ...
- 458
2
votes
Plenty of time, space, and money is needed or are needed?
Although MacMillan gives the part of speech for plenty as either pronoun or adverb, depending on usage, other dictionaries are careful to specify that in the case of plenty of + noun object(s), it is ...
2
votes
Is or Are? --> Every year, about 800,000 tonnes of food waste are generated
My sense of grammar would have
about 800,000 tonnes of food
a complex descriptor of waste.
I can also sense
about 800,000
and
of food waste
as modifiers of tonnes.
This ...
- 5,145
2
votes
{This/that vs. these/those} + many + plural noun
The difference between “much” and “many” is whether the thing measured is “countable”.
Stars are countable, they can be counted: one star, two stars, three stars, …
It may take you a while to count ...
- 929
2
votes
How can I remove the redundancy in quantifying in "there is a whole number of apples, and a whole number of oranges"?
"There are whole numbers of each of the items."
This addresses the plurality of items and the wholeness of the respective numbers.
- 46.4k
2
votes
What is the quantifying determiner for durian/jackfruit?
You can also use "pod" which is how people might more commonly refer to the durian fruit sections.
For example in How to Open a Durian Fruit
by Faith Durand:
See the “pod” coming out of the husk? ...
- 423
2
votes
What is the quantifying determiner for durian/jackfruit?
You can use the term bulb (aril) to talk about the edible part of a fruit like the jackfruit rather than the word seed.
I ate two jackfruit bulbs.
- 8,523
2
votes
Single-word quantifiers for "zero or more"-like cardinalities
English isn't particularly well provided with quantifiers, and as you have noted, the ones it has are imprecise. A more natural way of expressing your example in English is to phrase it in terms of ...
- 186
2
votes
Single-word quantifiers for "zero or more"-like cardinalities
Nonnegative
a
: being either positive or zero
Example:
A nonnegative number of spaces is allowed.
Will people understand this in common conversation? Perhaps in some communities, but it definitely ...
- 10.9k
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