[Ads-l] "information" as count noun

[Jonathan Lighter]

In any case, confusion between "few" and "little."

JL

On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 9:13 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> 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
>>
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