"many books" vs."many a book"

Question

"Many books" vs."many a book." Are there any meaning differences between the two expressions? Comments on any (possible) differences in sense, reference, denotation, connotation, emphasis, or whatever will help.

- Curious G.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]"Many books" vs."many a book." Are there any meaning differences between the two expressions? Comments on any (possible) differences in sense, reference, denotation, connotation, emphasis, or whatever will help.[/nq]
The second expression is more poetic, that's all, I think.

Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/
Many a tear has to fall, but it's all in the game.

Usenet · Answer

Skitt wrote on 11 Apr 2004:
[nq:2]"Many books" vs."many a book." Are there any meaning differences ... in sense, reference, denotation, connotation, emphasis, or whatever will help.[/nq]
[nq:1]The second expression is more poetic, that's all, I think.[/nq]
"Many a tear has to fall, but it's all in the game" means the same as "Many tears have to fall, but it's all in the game".

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
For email, ehziuh htiw rehpycrebyc ecalper.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Skitt wrote on 11 Apr 2004:[/nq]
[nq:2]The second expression is more poetic, that's all, I think.[/nq]
[nq:1]"Many a tear has to fall, but it's all in the game" means the same as "Many tears have to fall, but it's all in the game".[/nq]
From a popular hit song of the 1890s:
Many a heart is aching,
If you could read them all;
Many the hopes that have vanished
After the ball.
"The House of the Rising Sun," version collected by Lomax:

It's been the ruin of many a poor girl
There's the proverbial:
Many a Mickle makes a Muckle.
I think "many a time" is one I would be willing to use myself, now and then. I don't know under exactly which circumstances; I guess it depends on the rhythm and emphasis. "I've been there many times" sounds ordinary; "Oh, yes, I've been there many a time" sounds like I'm being thoughtful, maybe going to launch into a story. I imagine this comes less from any grammatical meaning than just the poetical associations.

Rhymezone shows at least 50 hits in Shakespeare (it mixes in "many as" and "many and" and so on, so I didn't get a precise count). So it's been around for a while. Examples:
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought
There's many a beast then in a populous city
But there even more hits for "many" followed by a plural. I don't see any obvious difference I wondered if maybe one stood for "many single instances of a thing" and the other for "many all together" but if that was ever true, I think it was blurred by Shakespeare's day.

Best Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]There's the proverbial: Many a Mickle makes a Muckle.[/nq]
Am I right that this should be, in theory at least, "Many a little makes a mickle"?
Adrian

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]"Many a tear has to fall, but it's all in the game" [/nq]
If I'm fated to have an episode of STS, this song is a good one. I remember the Tommy Edwards version of 1958 and how popular it was. (I was 15 at the time, as I believe you were, Franke.)

I wasn't sure I remembered all the words, so I looked it up and saw something very interesting
"Music by Charles Dawes in 1912, who later became US Vice Pres. under Coolidge and Words by Carl Sigman."
http://tinyurl.com/yvwoh

Maria Conlon
"Most of us die with our music still in us." /O. W. Holmes/ (That has more than one meaning, doesn't it?)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]There's the proverbial: Many a Mickle makes a Muckle.[/nq]
[nq:1]Am I right that this should be, in theory at least, "Many a little makes a mickle"? Adrian[/nq]
In his maddeningly unreliable way, ol' Ebenezer goes for both:

E. Cobham Brewer 1810-1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Many a Mickle makes a Muckle,
or Many a little makes a mickle. Little and often
fills the purse.
The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs doesn't have anything with "muckle". What it does have is:

1545 Many a little makes a great
1614 Many a little makes a mickleAnd more citations of that, with slight variation, until 1844.

Following the idea that it might be a Scottish saying, I checked the Dictionary of the Scots Language, which has no entry for "mickle" and says, in a long entry for "muckle":
1940 Huntly Express (19 Jan.) 3:He said at the close of his address: ``As the
Scots say, and they should know, mony a mickle mak's a muckle.'' As I know Mr Hilton I took the liberty of telling him that, as the Scots know, he had
quoted the proverb wrongly; that the proverb is
``Mony a little mak's a muckle,'' or ``Littles mak' mickles.''
As that entry shows, "meikill", "meikle" and occasionally "mickle" are variant spellings of "muckle."
So, the problem is that that "mickle" doesn't mean "little thing." Even in Old English, it meant "much" or "large":
Main Entry: mick·le
Variant(s): also mei·kle \m-kl\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English mikel, from Old English
micel more at MUCH
Date: before 12th century
chiefly Scottish : GREAT, MUCH
Still and all, even if it was a mistake or a jocular variant "Many a mickle makes a muckle" was widely enough known by 1898 for Brewer to consider it a saying.

Best Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

Maria Conlon wrote on 12 Apr 2004:
[nq:2]"Many a tear has to fall, but it's all in the game" [/nq]
[nq:1]If I'm fated to have an episode of STS, this song is a good one. I remember the Tommy Edwards version of 1958 and how popular it was. (I was 15 at the time, as I believe you were, Franke.)[/nq]
Yes, spot on.
[nq:1]I wasn't sure I remembered all the words, so I looked it up and saw something very interesting [/nq]
There weren't many words to remember? Only 7.5 lines (40 words).
[nq:1]"Music by Charles Dawes in 1912, who later became US Vice Pres. under Coolidge and Words by Carl Sigman."[/nq]
Yes, that is interesting. A song-writing VP and a 47-year-old song hits the pop sharts. I wonder what the original version sounded like.
[nq:1][/nq]
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
For email, ehziuh htiw rehpycrebyc ecalper.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Am I right that this should be, in theory at least, "Many a little makes a mickle"? Adrian[/nq]
[nq:1]In his maddeningly unreliable way, ol' Ebenezer goes for both: E. Cobham Brewer 1810-1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898. ... "Many a mickle makes a muckle" was widely enough known by 1898 for Brewer to consider it a saying.[/nq]
The online Oxford English Dictionary calls it "garbled":

mickle, a., ****., n., and adv.

4. A large sum or amount. Chiefly in proverb: many alittle (also pickle) makes a mickle (now freq. in the garbled form many a mickle makes a muckle).
The OED goes on to say
The form many a mickle makes a muckle (earliest
recorded in quot. 1793) arises from a misapprehension that, rather than being variants of the same word, mickle and muckle have opposite meanings, the former representing 'a small amount' and the latter 'a large amount'.
The 1793 quote turns out to be by, of all people, George Washington:
1793 G. WASHINGTON Writings (1939) XXXII. 423 AScotch addage, than which nothing in nature is more true 'that many mickles make a muckle'
As we all know well, George Washington could not tell a lie, so it must be true that nothing in nature is more true than that.

Anyway, "mickle" sounds as if should be small, and "muckle" large, so I'm in favor of letting them be that way.

Usenet · Answer

I don't disagree; afaiac the phrase has always been (the Scottish-sounding) "many a mickle mak's a muckle", and the evidence quoted suggests this variant established itself (for whatever reason) centuries ago. The use of the word "mickle" to mean large must've died out long before(?) and confusion only arises when confronted with placenames like "Littleover" and "Mickleover".
Adrian

"many books" vs."many a book"

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions