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Lucas21c Posted 11 years ago
Grammar

'little' vs 'small'

Could you confirm whether my grammatical judgement is right respectively on the following sentences? 'O' means right, and 'X' wrong. Thank you.

1A. Blend a little milk with the custard powder to form a paste. (O)
2B. Blend small milk with the custard powder to form a paste. (X)

2A. It is a relatively little amount of money. (O)
2B. It is relatively small amount of money. (O)
  

Top answer

2A doesn't sound completely right to me (though it is not glaringly wrong like the sentence that should be 1B but is accidentally labelled 2B). Otherwise I agree.

— GPY

  • 2A doesn't sound completely right to me (though it is not glaringly wrong like the sentence that should be 1B but is accidentally labelled 2B).
  • Otherwise I agree.
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3 Answers
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2A doesn't sound completely right to me (though it is not glaringly wrong like the sentence that should be 1B but is accidentally labelled 2B). Otherwise I agree.
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1. Do you mean the combination of 'a little' and 'amount' sound not very natural? Or, is it just due to the combination of 'a little' and 'relatively' of 'a relatively little'?

2. How about "Burps expel gas with a little amount of liquid from a person’s stomach"? Should it also be "Burps expel gas with small amount of liquid from a person’s
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1. I suppose it's both, in the sense that "a little amount of ~" and "a relatively little + uncountable noun" both sound off. "relatively little + uncountable noun" is OK.

2. Yes, either "a small amount of liquid" or "a little liquid", though I wonder whether the statement is factually correct.
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