[Ads-l] "information" as count noun

[Laurence Horn]

My money is on one non-native speaker/writer, picked up by (as you suggest) lots of other folks plagiarizing verbatim (if plagiarism even exists in this forum).  Note some of the other infelicities:

"there are rumors, floating around saying that GRRM has tapped on Neil Gaiman to help him to finish WInds of Winter."
--"tapped on"?  really?

"It involves a dead character, one of whom is dead in the show but not dead in the books."
--supposedly quoting George R. R. Martin, who I doubt said it in exactly that way.  Actually I just checked the interview at the link, where at 2:00 Martin says "It involves *a couple of characters*, one of whom is dead in the show...", not ""It involves *a dead character*, one of whom is dead in the show..."

or
"it is still a mystery as to how of the book is already done"
--still a mystery indeed

So there's pretty good evidence that it's safe to disregard the "few information", which sounds a lot like the language in letters of recommendation for graduate school applicants that we get from non-native speakers.

LH



> On Jun 19, 2016, at 7:27 PM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM> wrote:
> 
> "compared to the other books like 'A Dance with Dragons'; there's few information coming from Martin and his editors"
> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.crossmap.com_news_winds-2Dof-2Dwinter-2Drelease-2Ddate-2Dand-2Dupdates-2Dwont-2Dbe-2Dhappening-2Dthis-2Dyear-2Dbig-2Dplot-2Ddifference-2Dfrom-2Dgot-2Drevealed-2D28799&d=CwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=YFIyEX68mDsbdwLNZuvzX9lqNa6CyDulx9q0Lrdm3Uw&s=iHDsFCFs6b5AdB--oQG50E9mOwE2BwitiirPOAt975Y&e= 
> and according to Google, about 120 other websites, many of which have the same verbatim text.  I don't know which website was the original.
> 
> - James A. Landau
> 
> _____________________________________________________________
> Netscape.  Just the Net You Need.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=CwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=YFIyEX68mDsbdwLNZuvzX9lqNa6CyDulx9q0Lrdm3Uw&s=nUsqHMC5LfinNv-eATI1ihqdNWHZY0wPcbFhG5umX0I&e= 

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