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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
Why do we use plural noun and verb forms to agree with "zero"? Consider:
Zero sparrows were seen today, but we saw one robin.
Zero of seven lymph nodes on the right were positive for metastatic cancer, but one of eight lymph nodes on the right was positive.
Seven of nine Borg prefer the taste of Mentos. ha ha trekkie humor
Not one person thinks Joe is nice.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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good question! ~ perhaps because we are actually eliding the full sentence?
for example, we could back-form your first example to:
Zero (of the)sparrows were seen today, but we saw one robin.
But somehow putting 'zero' in some of these constructions seems unhandy to me in any case.
others?
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Joined: Nov 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Because, used the way you have used it, it is a plural quantity regardless of its inherent number, just like "bushels of wheat" ... simple, see?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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However, you can say
no sparrows were, or
no sparrow was
but not
zero sparrow was.
The Only WO'N!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Zero (of the) sparrows were found dead. Yes but sparrows here is the object of a preposition, not the subject of the sentence. "None" is singular because it stands in place of "not one." Therefore, "None of the passengers was found" is correct, although it sounds awkward and the use of "were" is more or less forgivable. But take out the prepositional phrase of the passengers and you still have the sentence "None was found." (One episode of the "Beavis and Butthead" show had Butthead praising his favorite rock band thusly: "These guys rock. There is none higher.") But getting back to zero... Really zero is neither singular nor plural, mathematically speaking, since it is neither one nor many. To assign it any case is arbitrary, and plural seems to work as well as as singular. perhaps a more rigorous language would have a unique case for zero, but our languages evolved faster than our understanding of the concept of zero, so probably we were already set in our ways when it came on the scene. For a very interesting essay on The History of Zero, see http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Zero.htmlNow then, next question: what is tat and where do I get some?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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yes, this is a yart.. so kill me..
tat is interesting.. and tatting, is a kind of lacemaking, made with a bobbin and shuttle (not pillow lace-- which is the most elaborate kind of lace)
tatting is done in a series of linked loops, and is actually a series of hitches, and half hitches (for those who know their knots!) the loops can be connected to a mesh, which is made identically to fish netting, only in minature.. (tatting thread is slightly thicker than sewing thread!)
but i suspect this is not the tat you care about (to tat is a verb, and sometimes crossword word, to make lace)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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but sparrows here is the object of a preposition, not the subject of the sentence
I disagree - that may be the gramatical analysis, but the analysis of meaning suggests that it is the sparrows under discussion and therefore central to any question that may have caused this strange utterance to be made: for example, "How many of the sparrows were killed?"
But I would return to the central point of style above all - it sounds awkward because it attempts to couple a precise mathematical term to the sentence in an unlikely syntax. The more natural way would surely be either to render the general sense with 'none', as you mention, or to put the precise term in its singular state by not jangling it with the plural noun: eg, "The number of sparrows killed was zero."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, for a 1970s definition of TAT by usage, consider Queen Bitch by David Bowie, one of the great songs ...
I'm up on the eleventh floor
And I'm watching the cruisers below
He's down on the street
And he's trying hard to pull sister Flo
Oh, my heart's in the basement
My weekend's at an all time low
'Cause she's hoping to score
So I can't see her letting him go
Walk out of her heart
Walk out of her mind
She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that
She's an old-time ambassador
Of sweet talking, night walking games
And she's known in the darkest clubs
For pushing ahead of the dames
If she says she can do it
Then she can do it, she don't make false claims
But she's a Queen, and such are queens
That your laughter is sucked in their brains
Now she's leading him on
And she'll lay him right down
Yes she's leading him on
And she'll lay him right down
But it could have been me
Yes, it could have been me
Why didn't I say, why didn't I say, no, no, no
She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that
So I lay down a while
And I look at my hotel wall
Oh the cot is so cold
It don't feel like no bed at all
Yeah I lay down a while
And I look at my hotel wall
But he's down on the street
So I throw both his bags down the hall
And I'm phoning a cab
'Cause my stomach feels small
There's a taste in my mouth
And it's no taste at all
It could have been me
Oh yeah, it could have been me
Why didn't I say, Why didn't I say, no, no, no
She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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