Number & Grammar (English)

[Gerald H]

In another thread:

http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-3355.html

a point was raised concerning number in English grammar.

Here a provisional guideline on the answer:

English grammar recognizes two numbers, "singular" & "other", the second category more often called "plural" - a misnomer, as one element of the group is zero, certainly not a plurality but rather a nullity.

In the thread above the question was whether "none" requires singular or other agreement - a falsely posed question.

"There is none" is correct when talking of milk in the house

while

"There are none" when discussing how many party guests are still in the flat.

Please forgive me starting a new thread on this topic but the thread above was not about grammar.

Similary, concerning the position of this thread in the Forum, I place it here as part of general math and science etc.

[Paul Dale]

What have I started????????


- Pauli

[Thomas Radtke]

In the original thread, BruceH pointed me to a link about the origin and use of None (thanks, Bruce!). I think this gives sufficient information to all non-nativ english speakers on that topic.

For about 15 years readers (even Walter!) were able to ignore my many mistakes in using the english language. Please continue to do so :-).

[Gerald H]

(03-14-2015 09:29 AM)Thomas Radtke Wrote:  In the original thread, BruceH pointed me to a link about the origin and use of None (thanks, Bruce!). I think this gives sufficient information to all non-nativ english speakers on that topic.

For about 15 years readers (even Walter!) were able to ignore my many mistakes in using the english language. Please continue to do so :-).

I generally ignore the plethora of English errors - Indeed, I hope all on this Forum consider errors in maths & programming our primary concern.

If the discussion a- or de-scends into a grammar discussion I feel warranted to rebuke. I guess some of the members of the Forum are trying to improve their English.

No one should be deterred from expressing themselves here in English, it's their ideas that are of interest.

And now back to matters more properly positioned on this Forum....

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

"Is there any nun in this forum?"
"No, there are none here."
I may of course be wrong. Both regarding grammar and the answer to the question. Feel free to correct any mistake you find :-)

[Dave Britten]

Some vaguely related food for thought:

English has no future tense. Neither does Japanese, which also has no distinction between singular and plural.

[Katie Wasserman]

Comments having to do with calculators in this thread? There were none, so I moved it.