George Thompson's researches

[Dennis R. Preston]

I said I couldn't say "researches" either, but to raise the ghost of
"degrees of grammaticality," I am much happier with "researches" than
"informations" and with "informations" than "furnitures."

I'd say it was because I know to parcel out the latter two in "bits
and pieces," respectively, but that would only raise the ire of
anti-punsters like larry.

But seriously folks, I don't have a "classifier" for "research" as
readily at hand as I do for the others. Could that have anything to
with it? I doubt it; I've got handy classifiers for "beer," (cans,
bottles), but that doesn't stop me from asking for "two beers." But,
come to think of it, I have handy classifiers for wine too (bottle,
glass), but I would never say give me "five wines," although I am
sure waitpersons have no difficulty with this.

dInIs


>I can't either.
>
>allen
>maberry at u.washington.edu
>
>On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote:
>
>>  Both Fred and Jesse refer to George Thompson's 'researches' in telling us
>>  about the NYT article.  Am I the only one here who can't use that as a
>>  count noun?
>>
>>  Lynne