"Little" Vs "Few"

You are correct. May help to think of opposites: little < big, large, much

few < many,

Oh, god, now you've done it. JTT will find this and tell us that's all wrong and there's no difference actually and you can use whichever one you want and any rule is just a phony creation by pseudo-grammarians. And be extremely pompous about it. Watch out.

You're really developing an inferiority complex, MJ. You used to give pretty damn good language advice - when you actually used your brain.



Now you've taken to lying. I've never said that. Prescriptions aren't rules. How you could have been here for so long and missed that not subtle at all distinction is beyond me.

Try using your brain, MJ. You're letting your anger get the best of you.

http://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums/viewtopic.php?f=125&t=70382

http://www.indiastudychannel.com/forum/100380-Little-Vs-Few-difference.aspx

http://forum.china.org.cn/viewthread.php?tid=42156

http://myenglishforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=251




tired of recycling A2k posts?

JTT, I still do give "pretty damn good language advice", to wit:

That's not language advice, MJ, and you don't even know it.

Notice that as soon as your language "advice" is questioned you fold like a tent.

Remember you flat out lied in your post before this last one. Who is to trust you now?

You clearly don't understand, JTT. I'm not "folding", I'm disagreeing. You're somebody who studied a little and wre taught one kind of language analysis, and wet a bit crazy with it. You're descriptivism run amok and show little awareness of the social aspects/uses of language. And what you call lying is commonly known as exaggeration for dramatic effect (a common linguistic and rhetorical device which you clearly know nothing about either, tho it's been in use at least since the Romans)(and, I might add, it was only a very, very slight exaggeration).

You are thinking of "less" and "fewer", I think.

You don't understand the difference. Being disagreeable is nowhere near the same as disagreeing on the language issues. Go back and point to where you were "disagreeing".



That's hilarious, MJ. Find a place that illustrates your lame contention and we'll discuss it.



I'm well aware of that and how it works. I often use that myself. But in this situation, you just lied. And now you, caught out, don't possess the necessary honesty to admit it.

Your deafening silence is a clear admission of your lie, MJ.

And your "disagreeing" - when are you going to get around to pointing that out?

No, JTT, it's because arguing with you is a lot like arguing with a parrot (I've had one, I know from parrots). You have a limited repertoire of arguments and you'll repeatthem endlessly, impervious to any counter examples which show your viewpoint is limited and only deals with a small subset of language usage.

For example, many of the discussions here deal with vocabulary usage, no generative aspect at all. You seem impervious to the fact that word choice is definitely NOT determined by the time kids have a pretty good (tho not complete and not conscious) idea of how to correctly generate meaningful sentences. People learn aspects of language and meanings and contexts of words all thru their lives, and modify those usages. And if people use words in a particular way, and if that way is accepted as valid by other speakers, then it really makes no difference if they learned it holistically in the cradle, or accepted it as their usage rule because it came from a widely accepted style book. What it means is that language is simply a good deal more complicated than your somewhat simplistic view of it.

You don't consider the clear indications you should have gotten from the discussion that "can" and "may", for example, show strong likelihood of being conditioned by, among other things, sex, nationality, generation (as in age, not as in generation of sentences), social class, ethnicity, and kind of education the speaker had. As someone said, corpus studies tell "what" people say, not "why" they say it. You focus on the "what", but the "why" is often just as important, if not more so, for language acquisition and use, particularly for adult learners, who spoke a different language, with different generative rules in the cradle, and are acquiring a language CONSCIOUSLY as an adult, at an age when a huge degree of language plasticity has been lost. The rules they learn have to be conscious and the word choice conscious, until they get sufficient examples and sufficient models for it to start to become internalized.

Think outside your box, JTT>

It's hard to know where to start in that morass of lies and half truths, MJ, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

You still haven't shown us where you were "disagreeing", nor have you pointed anything up that would support that other lame contention. Care to deal with these?

Sure. Look at the whole "can, may" discussion. Look at the "probably" discussion. Actually, mine are all truths. You have a limited idea of how language actually .functions

We can certainly deal with those threads, but first,

You still haven't shown us where you were "disagreeing",

Just did.

No, you're simply lying again, MJ. When I first asked you about this, you hadn't disagreed about anything. It's there for all to see and still you lie. What do you have against being honest?

What on earth are you talking about, JTT? I've disagreed with you repeatedly, and continue to do so. I've told you why, and given several instances of where.

You are really terribly dishonest, MJ. Go back over the posts, ... nah, forget it. Your dishonesty is much too deep to make any difference.

Post # 3 Not disagreeing, just disagreeable.

MJ: Oh, god, now you've done it. JTT will find this and tell us that's all wrong and there's no difference actually and you can use whichever one you want and any rule is just a phony creation by pseudo-grammarians.

MJ's next post: Not disagreeing, just disagreeable.

JTT, I still do give "pretty damn good language advice", to wit:


MJ's next post: Not disagreeing, just disagreeable and you start in with the lies too, MJ.

You're descriptivism run amok and show little awareness of the social aspects/uses of language.

Then when I told you that,

You don't understand the difference. Being disagreeable is nowhere near the same as disagreeing on the language issues. Go back and point to where you were "disagreeing".

You fled like you always do. Why? Because you couldn't point to you disagreeing. All there was was you being disagreeable. Then when you were caught out, you simply continued with your lies.

Again, what do you have against being honest, MJ?