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MUSCOVITE Posted 14 years ago
Vocabulary
Word-frequency related "issue"
Hi,
If you could comment on the "alternative plurals" such as fruit / fruits, fish / fishes, etc?
[1] Let me start with "fish".
The very first thing I find under the entry "fish" (in my longman) is that this noun has two alternative forms in the plural.
Unfortunately the dictionary says absolutely nothing about whether fish and fishes are interchangeable, and to what extent?
Lets take the phrases "...tropical fish can be found..." (1) and "...tropical fishes can be found..." (2) and see how many instances of either sort the google search engine can find in the Internet.
The results I've got are as follows:
Or do they only indicate that the collocation "tropical fish" is more frequent than "tropical fishes"?
[2] Regarding the pair of plurals, fruit / fruits
Let's take the phases "...tropical fruits are harvested..." (3) and "...tropical fruit are harvested..." (4)
This time, the google search engine reports:
thank you!
Mus-te
If you could comment on the "alternative plurals" such as fruit / fruits, fish / fishes, etc?
[1] Let me start with "fish".
The very first thing I find under the entry "fish" (in my longman) is that this noun has two alternative forms in the plural.
Unfortunately the dictionary says absolutely nothing about whether fish and fishes are interchangeable, and to what extent?
Lets take the phrases "...tropical fish can be found..." (1) and "...tropical fishes can be found..." (2) and see how many instances of either sort the google search engine can find in the Internet.
The results I've got are as follows:
- 737,000 instances for (1), and
- 7,330 instances for (2)
Or do they only indicate that the collocation "tropical fish" is more frequent than "tropical fishes"?
[2] Regarding the pair of plurals, fruit / fruits
Let's take the phases "...tropical fruits are harvested..." (3) and "...tropical fruit are harvested..." (4)
This time, the google search engine reports:
- 9690 instances for (3), and
- only 3 instances for (4)
thank you!
Mus-te
Top answer
1. The results do not 'prove' anything, but they support my belief. It has nothing to do with 'tropical', of course—which you could easily enough check yourself by substituting other adjectives: lake, fried, illegal , etc.
- 1.
- The results do not 'prove' anything, but they support my belief.
- It has nothing to do with 'tropical', of course—which you could easily enough check yourself by substituting other adjectives: lake, fried, illegal , etc.
- 2.
- It is not a fair comparison, since you used the plural verb for both.
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1 Answers
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1. The results do not 'prove' anything, but they support my belief. It has nothing to do with 'tropical', of course—which you could easily enough check yourself by substituting other adjectives: lake, fried, illegal, etc.
2. It is not a fair comparison, since you used the plural verb for both. Try again with a singular verb for the uncountable form.
I have never seen a
2. It is not a fair comparison, since you used the plural verb for both. Try again with a singular verb for the uncountable form.
I have never seen a
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