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Jigneshbharati Posted 9 years ago
Grammar

A great many ways

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Please explain to me the use of "a" before "great many ways"? Is "many ways" not plural?

Thanks

  

Top answer

Ways is plural all right. A great many ways is just an idiomatic phrase. There are other cases in which the indefinite article is used with a plural noun: He spent a happy five days in Hamburg.

— Cool Breeze

  • Ways is plural all right.
  • A great many ways is just an idiomatic phrase.
  • There are other cases in which the indefinite article is used with a plural noun: He spent a happy five days in Hamburg.
  • CB
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3 Answers
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Ways is plural all right. A great many ways is just an idiomatic phrase. There are other cases in which the indefinite article is used with a plural noun: He spent a happy five days in Hamburg.

CB

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http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/many

The indefinite article is being used idiomatically with the singular many: a great many (of) ways. The preposition "of" is usually omitted. It occasionally used with pronouns and when there are other determiners

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“A” can combine with “many” to form a complex determinative. “Great” can be replaced by “good” (“a good many”), but one or the other of these adjectives is required.

It functions as determiner (or 'fused' determiner) to a noun in the same way that the complex paucal “a few” does, cf. “a great many mistakes” ~ “a very few mistakes”, the latter also allowing "good" and "fair".

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