Seems this list hasn't quite gone to ground (or been gonetogrounded?), so
I'll raise another question.
The writing style guide for the department where I'm working tells us not
to use 'over' instead of 'more than' in phrases like 'over 20 people' and
similarly not to say 'under 20 people' instead of 'fewer than'. This seems
ridiculous to me - phrases like 'the over-60s' and 'children under 12' are
perfectly ordinary usage, not even slang. But my wife agrees with the style
guide that these are 'too informal'.
What do you think?
Howard
On Thu, 15 Jun 2017 at 1:21 pm, John Maizels <john@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm with Michael, even though I didn't have anything rationed.mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
When I see "a software" my first thought is that there's a missing noun,
as in "a software title". I have trouble considering software as a count
noun, but I do like Michael's explanation as to why non E1L speakers (and
especially those from Asia) might treat it as a count noun.
As for the other, I'm on the way to onboard a room full of students.
Seems natural enough.
John
At 13:09 15/06/2017, Michael Lewis wrote:
Indeed. (As a child of the rationing era, I remember it quite well.) But
the term has now acquired the meaning of a dealing "out of sight" of
authorities of any kind, including the tax man - and the anti-corruption
watchdogs. (There's another term that has taken on a new life!) "Under the
counter" is used often enough - at least in England, though perhaps it's
less common here - that it doesn't need a revival.
- Michael
On 15/06/2017 12:59, Bob T wrote:
Michael,
I though that the phrase 'under the counter' was a rather old phrase from
Britain that describes retailing during WW2 when rationing was being used.
One way to get around rations was to have some goods under counter and out
of sight.Â
Maybe it will have a revival.
Bob T
On 15 June 2017 at 11:08, Michael Lewis <mlewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Treating "software" as a count noun rather than a mass noun is, indeed,
common to non-native speakers. There are many comparable examples,
including one I mentioned a while back - "pant" having become a singular
noun in quite widespread usage, because "a pair of pants" seems to refer to
those generous tailors (no "Y" there, Janet!) who sell a suit with a single
jacket and a second pair of trews. The mass/count noun distinction really
doesn't exist in many east Asian languages, especially those that don't
have "articles" such as a/an and the, so speakers of those languages don't
have the habits of thought that make the distinction seem natural.
As for "onboarding", it's a result of a legitimate process by which new
words enter the language and, having entered, start to behave like other
longer-standing words. Perhaps current political issues will lead to
"underthecountering" in the near future . . .
Michael Lewis
On 15/06/2017 09:51, Janet Taylor wrote:
Where on earth did you see that?
I’m still reeling from ‘onboarding’.
Bye…
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [
