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Vincent Teo Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Collecting informations

Can I say,

They are collecting information / informations in the cybercafe with computers.
  

Top answer

It should be "information". You never say "informations". With "information", the sentence is grammatically feasible, but it's awkward and unlikely.

— Mr Wordy

  • It should be "information".
  • You never say "informations".
  • With "information", the sentence is grammatically feasible, but it's awkward and unlikely.
  • "with computers" is not very natural here (and seems superfluous anyway), and "collecting information" is a strange phrase to use -- unless they're working for the secret services or something like that.
  • I'm struggling to suggest a better alternative because I can't really picture what these people are doing.
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2 Answers
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It should be "information". You never say "informations".

With "information", the sentence is grammatically feasible, but it's awkward and unlikely. "with computers" is not very natural here (and seems superfluous anyway), and "collecting information" is a strange phrase to use -- unless they're working for the secret services or something like that. I'm struggling to suggest a better al
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Information is used in the same way as butter, bread, and other materials that we can take 'bits' of.

In computing, a binary digit is called a 'bit' exactly because it represents a bit of information.

So:
collecting information. - correct

collecting bits of information. - correct
collecting informations. - wrong.
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