amount/number

[Wilson Gray]

And then there's the replacement of "lot(s of)" by "ton{s of)," even
when the latter is literally true, e.g.

"We have tons of low-price, high-quality, pre-owned cars at all our
dealerships!"

Certainly, cars weigh tons. But, like, you know.

-Wilson

On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: amount/number
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It's been a long, long time since I heard anybody say "a large number of"
> when they could get away with "a large amount of." Â "Amount" seems regularl=
> y
> to be used for "number" nowadays in speech in this and similar contexts
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Randy Alexander
> <strangeguitars at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â amount/number
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> Rodney Huddleston just mentioned to me that in British English,
>> "amount" is not generally used with count nouns.
>>
>> I see this in some usage guides on the web, like Brians:
>> http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/amount.html
>>
>> I decided to see what I could find comparing COCA and BNC, and this is
>> what I found:
>>
>> I tried this search: amount of *s.[n*]
>>
>> The syntax means "amount of" + any noun that ends in "s".=C2 Â Of course
>> there are some uncount nouns thrown in, but COCA gives 1244 hits (COCA
>> is 385 million words).=C2 Â BNC (100 million words) gives 371 hits, which
>> times 3.85 is 1428.35.
>>
>> Then I tried this search: amount of *s.[*nn2*].
>>
>> This restricts it to plural nouns (which still contains some uncount
>> plurals).=C2 Â COCA gives 758 hits, and BNC gives 282 * 3.85 =3D 1085.7.
>>
>> According to this, it looks like in BrE, amount may cover counts more
>> than in AmE.=C2 Â One specific example is "amount of things".=C2 Â COCA giv=
> es
>> 14 hits, vs BNC's 8 * 3.85 =3D 30.8.
>>
>> I would like to know what people think of this.=C2 Â Is the usage advice
>> prescriptivist poppycock?=C2 Â Do you use "amount" with count nouns?
>>
>> --
>> Randy Alexander
>> Jilin City, China
>> My Manchu studies blog:
>> http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
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>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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