161–170 of 209 posts
' “I have no legs” means that I have 0 legs (as opposed to 1 leg or 2 legs), while “I have no leg” means that I have not any leg (i.e., I do not have any leg) ' made me laugh :D Edit: To be honest, I don't see the difference between "I have 0 legs" and "I do not have any leg", can someone explain?
I’m not sure what you’re saying, that isn’t grammatically correct.
The answer says zero is treated as "plural" because we say "0 books". Interestingly, we can say either: 1. "There are no books on this subject" 2. "There is no book on this subject"
You’re sentences say:
1. There are not any books on the subject.
2. There is not a single book on the subject.
(1) uses the absence of multiple and (2) uses the absence of single. Neither actually uses zero even though the quantity indicated is zero.
Fun fact - in Polish we have separate forms for 1 (singular), 2-4 (plural but nit many) and everything else. Zero is in “everything else” 0 książek 0.5 książki 1 książka 2,3,4 książki 2.5 książki 5 and above książek 5.5 (any other fraction) książki >100 and a fraction - depends Singular is for one. The first plural is for things kind of treated as individual objects. The second plural is for things that are treated a…
Languages with these features often have lots of irregularities around them, too. In the same way that "pants" are plural for no reason in English, eyes might be plural instead of the obvious-seeming dual, etc. And if that seems all a bit unnecessarily numerical, you may be right; Chinese has gotten by for thousands of years without any plurals at all.
Fun fact - in Polish we have separate forms for 1 (singular), 2-4 (plural but nit many) and everything else. Zero is in “everything else” 0 książek 0.5 książki 1 książka 2,3,4 książki 2.5 książki 5 and above książek 5.5 (any other fraction) książki >100 and a fraction - depends Singular is for one. The first plural is for things kind of treated as individual objects. The second plural is for things that are treated a…
The term in linguistics for a category of 3 or 4 things is "paucal". Most languages with a paucal separate 2 from 3 or 4, resulting in four noun categories/forms by number: singular (1), dual (2), paucal (3 - 4? a few?) and plural (5+). That's quite a common pattern among the world's languages. Polish and the other Slavic languages with this feature are a little unusual in not having the separate dual. A few language…
Chinese has plurals; 们 has no other use.
I actually didn't know this so it's new to me but maybe I'm missing the nuances of English.. There is only 1 quantity in 0.. Or inversely there is a singular ABSENSE of a quantity. So how it's explained in the answer doesn't really explain it for me. Edit: I also have a problem understanding "On accident" when for me it's surely "By accident". English is strange.
Firstly, that is your interpretation of zero. It is also an abscence of all the possible values that it could be, which is a plural concept. Secondly, yeah American English is moronic and full of barstadised phrases. In the UK, we always say "by accident". We also say "I couldn't care less" not "I could care less", the American version which is illogical. If the meaning is to be "I care the minimum amount possible",…
Can you point out a human language that isn't full of bastardized phrases? I'm pretty sure that's universal, including British English.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"0" is the same thing as "no" and thus it is a negation of something. Why would you remove the plural from something if your intention is to negate it? If someone drinks your beers, then you have no beers because it's a negation of multiple beers. If you don't know how many beers there were then it's likely there was more than one anyway. ps: we can also say the beers were mutiplied by 0.
"0 x" is only valid if x is a countable noun. "No x" is valid for any noun. Liquids are an example of non-countable nouns - "I have no water" but "I have zero oranges." Some thoughts: - English requires the use of an article with singular nouns, because the question of "which X" is important. - This question is impossible for plural nouns (no "which X" when X is 2 or more), and where the noun doesn't actually exist -…
Well, that obviously can't be true, or other languages would have the same requirement.
It's just the way that people (via social mechanisms - mostly mimicry) standardized expressing the absence of something.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are using examples which are typically plural. Consider instead these singular forms: "My shelf contains no Elf-on-a-Shelf" / "My shelf contains no elephant" / "My shelf contains no Hemingway book." / "My shelf contains no book by Hemingway." (For an example of the third: "Don't look there for a copy of 'The Old Man and the Sea'? I detest Hemingway, and my shelf contains no Hemingway book." In this case, 'no' mea…
The 'correct' English is "no books by Hemmingway"
I think the original sentence was already pretty weird, since I wouldn't say "My shelf contains no books." making it hard for me to judge what is not weird.
However, "Does your shelf contain a book by Hemingway?" sounds equally correct to "No, my shelf contains no book by Hemingway."
And equally correct to "My shelf contains no books."