Before someone beats me to the punch...

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:45 PM -0500 3/4/11, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>I think Clint, Lee and Eli would resent being considered "mass nouns"...
>DanG

Just saw the last of those three at the Oscars, still looking spry
(and no uglier than ever) at 90+.  *They're* not mass nouns, just the
deferred referents of them.  (Cf. Nunberg's "The ham sandwich at
Table 5 wants his check" or "I'm rubber, you're glue".)

LH

>On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 7:00 AM, Margaret Lee <mlee303 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Margaret Lee <mlee303 at YAHOO.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: Before someone beats me to the punch...
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  And another set of mass nouns: =A0'the good, the bad, and the ugly.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org