I would like some English speakers opinion on a grammatical issue related to English.
fra Foreigner,2014 7 9
Meldinger: 17
Språk: English
Foreigner (Å vise profilen) 2014 7 9 02:32:52
I am a native English speaker, but this scenario tripped me up today. I was at the hardware store looking at refrigerators. I saw two models I liked. One model was 3.1 feet tall; the other model was 4.5 feet tall. I said to my mother, "This refrigerator is 1.4 feet taller," but then I wondered if that was grammatically correct.
If it had been two or more feet, I would not have the confusion, but I know I wouldn't say "one feet taller;" I would say "one foot taller."
So should I have said, "This refrigerator is one point four foot taller?"
To add, if there is ever an amount that is more than one but less than two, should I make the measurement plural? Should I say, "I ran 1.3 miles today," or "I ran 1.3 mile today," because I know "1 miles" is incorrect. With regard to time, "We have one and a half hour left," or "we have one and a half hours left," because "we have one hours" is wrong. If not half, then would I say "We have 1.2 hour..." or "We have 1.2 hours..."
The type of measure is irrelevant, I just needed to show examples.
PlaidMouse (Å vise profilen) 2014 7 9 04:34:43
This is a great question and one (pun intended) I can help you with, being a professional English teacher. The only time we use the singular version of a unit in English is when we use "1". If the refrigerator you are looking at is 1.4 units/meters/feet tall, then, as you can see, you would make it plural. The same goes for zero (0) and fractions ( 3/4, 0.5, etc.) that do not include the number "1" in the numerator. For example: The hairs on my head are only 0.01 millimeters thick. However, if the hair on my head was 1 millimeter thick, I would put the unit in the singular. If the fraction includes a one in the numerator (1/2, 1/4) then you treat it as singular. For example "I ate a half/one half of a pizza!". The reason for this is that the indefinite article (a/an) always means "one" and therefore they are interchangeable.
I think the grammatical numbering in Esperanto is the same, but double check on this (especially for zero and fractions). I hope this helps!
Kristal (Å vise profilen) 2014 7 9 05:24:12
sudanglo (Å vise profilen) 2014 7 9 10:23:16
As Kristal points out, in discussing the difference in height of two fridges this would most likely be expressed in feet and inches, using imperial measures, rather than in a decimal form - so one foot five inches taller.
That there might be a difference in singular versus plural usage for other units eg miles, centimetres etc could be related to the fact that foot has another meaning outside measurement.
How much did the baby weigh at birth? 6 pound 4 ounces.
I'm 11 stone 3 in my undies.
jkph00 (Å vise profilen) 2014 7 10 00:27:48
sudanglo:No need to be overly pedantic here. Commonly native speakers of British English use foot instead of feet in discussing height eg six foot tall or she's five foot seven.Sudanglo, we American English speakers do not use "stone" as a measure, though we do encounter it often in British literature. I know it means 14 pounds imperial but tell me, where did it come from? And how often is it used in contemporary speech among the English?
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I'm 11 stone 3 in my undies.
1Guy1 (Å vise profilen) 2014 7 10 06:56:36
jkph00:I do not know where it came from but I still weigh myself in stones (classified!) And if I read something that uses pounds in regard to someone's weight I have to convert it to stones to get a feel for it.sudanglo:No need to be overly pedantic here. Commonly native speakers of British English use foot instead of feet in discussing height eg six foot tall or she's five foot seven.Sudanglo, we American English speakers do not use "stone" as a measure, though we do encounter it often in British literature. I know it means 14 pounds imperial but tell me, where did it come from? And how often is it used in contemporary speech among the English?
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I'm 11 stone 3 in my undies.
Clarence666 (Å vise profilen) 2014 7 10 08:59:52
Foreigner:"This refrigerator is 1.4 feet taller," but then I wondered if that was grammatically correctI'd say "This refrigerator is 1.4 meters taller."
sudanglo (Å vise profilen) 2014 7 10 11:05:36
During the Middle Ages, a conveniently-sized rock was often chosen as a local standard for weighing agricultural commodities ..... in 1389, a royal statute of Edward III fixed the stone of wool at 14 pounds.
And how often is it used in contemporary speech among the English?Very often, for how much somebody weighs.
Timtim (Å vise profilen) 2014 7 10 11:23:00
sudanglo:Commonly native speakers of British English use foot instead of feet in discussing height eg six foot tall or she's five foot seven.Yep, and for a good reason. The structure in OE was to use the genitive plural for measurement. The nominative singular of "stone" was "stān" and since its genitive plural (stāna) lacked the s-ending that the OE nominative plural (stānas) and the contemporary plural have, when the declensions died away people naturally used the form that most closely matched it, which was the s-less (so, singular) form, even though it clearly relates to a plural concept. The same is true of "feet", the genitive plural of which (fōta) didn't feature the vowel mutation of the nominative plural (fēt) and so was replaced by the closer-sounding nominative singular when the variety of noun declensions died off.
jkph00:Sudanglo, we American English speakers do not use "stone" as a measure, though we do encounter it often in British literature. I know it means 14 pounds imperial but tell me, where did it come from? And how often is it used in contemporary speech among the English?Think back to a time when people used to trade but didn't have the benefit of our standardised weights and measures. The only thing they could do was to use approximations, such as handspans. When trading some large things, the most convenient measuring device might have been a stone or rock of an approximate size and say that you wanted a certain price for a weight equivalent to the stone, or that you wanted to purchase a quantity equivalent in weight to a particular number of stones.
I don't know about the younger generation, but I think using stones for bodyweight is still extreme common for most of us. There are seven years between me and my brother and whilst I used imperial measurements at school for most things, he used metric, with the exception of height and weight of people. I've noticed that baby weights tend to be reported in metric as a matter of course now but would hazard a guess that nearly everybody over, say, 20 or 25 would still naturally use imperial for those things.
1Guy1 (Å vise profilen) 2014 7 10 12:46:31