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Believer Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

Few and a few

0Hi,02br
00I think 'a few' in front of a noun conveys a positive-polarity view point; whereas 'few' in front of a noun conveys the negative. I tried to consider the context of a writing to discern whether it is reflecting a positive view point or the negative view point, but sometimes it is not so clear. Can you help.02br
00I changed a few things -- not many but enough??02br
00I changed few things -- not enough?? 0-
  

Top answer

02br 02br 00Scenario 1:02br 00Imagine that you have recently moved to a new city and, after living there for only a week, you already have 01u 00two new friends02u 00. You might say this:02br 01i 00Everything is going very well! I love living here.

— Yankee

  • 02br 02br 00Scenario 1:02br 00Imagine that you have recently moved to a new city and, after living there for only a week, you already have 01u 00two new friends02u 00.
  • You might say this:02br 01i 00Everything is going very well!
  • I love living here.
  • The people are great and I have already made 01b 00a few friends02b 00!
  • 02br 02br 02i 00Scenario 2:02br 00Imagine that you moved to a new city a year ago and, after living there for a year, you had only made 01u 00two new friends02u 00.
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7 Answers
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0 Hi Believer02br
02br
00Let's use a different example.02br
02br
00Scenario 1:02br
00Imagine that you have recently moved to a new city and, after living there for only a week, you already have 01u00two new friends02u00. You might say this:02br
01i00Everything is going very well! I love living here. T
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1i00a few02i00 = some, several, a small number of (01u00compared02u00 to 01i00zero02i00) [positive, that is, 01u00increasing02u00 from zero as the point of comparison]02br
01i00few 02i00= not many (01u00compared02u00 to 01i00many02i00
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0Thank you, CalifJim and Yankee. With two helping hands on board, it makes clearer.02br
02br
00CalifJim, you said, "That said, once you pass your exams on the use of 01i00few02i00, you can forget it!"02br
02br
00Right, I think. My next question is "Can the sentence be like this?"02br
02br
00That said, once 01u
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0 01i00once upon a time02i00 is a fixed phrase. You can't get the real meaning of 01i00once02i00 from that kind of phrase. 02br
00 The conjunction 01i00once02i00 is not restricted to particular tenses. It means 01i00as soon as02i00, 01i00immediately after02i00.02b
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0Thank you, CalifJim.02br
02br
00After I wrote my last inqiring post, I thought 'once upon a time' is kind of an idiomatic expression and that couldn't be an example to base my question, but I learned something new (or maybe a piece of knowledge that was buried due to long under-use?) in that when you want to express a past point of view, you have to use 'could', not 'can'. D
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0 That's right. 01i00can02i00 only works in the present point of view. It's not possible to say things like 01i00*Yesterday I can do it for you, but not today.02i02br
02br
00 CJ0-
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That was really very well said. Thanks CJ
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