Subj : There is/there are
To   : alexander koryagin
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Fri Mar 02 2018 18:00:57

Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to mark lewis:

ak>  Let's take a phrase: THERE IS NO TWO IDENTICAL NOSE-
ak>  PRINTS AMONG CATS. From one side, probably, I should
ak>  use "there are no..." -- I tell you about nose-prints.

ml>  it seems to me that "are" is correct since we're talking
ml>  about more than one "nose-print"...


         Up to this point, I agree with both you & Mark.  :-)



ak>  As I say that maybe the fact is more important than
ak>  details. For instance:


ak>  Yann Martel's Life of Pi (winner prize book)
     |I think you mean "prize-winning book"

ak>  -----Beginning of the citation-----
ak>  The lifeboat was now covered and the tarpaulin battened
ak>  down, except at my end. I squeezed in between the side
ak>  bench and the tarpaulin and pulled the remaining tarpaulin
ak>  over my head. I did not have much space. Between bench and
ak>  gunnel there was twelve inches, and the side benches were
ak>  only one and a half feet wide.
ak>  -----The end of the citation-----

ak>  Check it out: "there was twelve inches!"


         Ah... but the author has Pi tell the story in the first person.  As a 
translator of stories you need to be aware of the context.  Yes, the fact that 
(unbeknown to Pi) there's a tiger hidden under the tarp is more important than 
Pi's grammar & spelling... OTOH I regard scrupulous attention to detail as one 
of the distinguishing features of an exceptionally good novelist.  Pi is a kid 
of roughly the same age as my students in grade eight, and he's the only human 
witness to these events.  His parents are/were apparently quite well-educated. 
If he makes typical grade eight errors from time to time, however... or uses a 
variant spelling in preference to the more conventional "gunwale"... that's in 
character!  At a fairly similar age Huckleberry Finn was speaking as a kid who 
had skipped out of school & who lived in the southeastern US would have spoken 
in Mark Twain's day.  I don't expect such fictitious personages to dot all the 
i's & cross all the t's correctly.  When other adults here ask me to "find two 
errors, please" I see they're operating on a much more advanced level....  ;-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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