[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

... Celebrate! You now have a new way to use the word nonsense

So you might as well also tell us whether the plural of this countable noun would be nonsense or nonsenses.

"In a five minutes address the man managed to utter five nonsense."
or, "In a five minutes address the man managed to utter five nonsenses."
That's one nonsense per minute, mind you!

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

You now have a new way to use the word nonsense

My PE teacher in school had a zany way too. People who didn't have basic sports skills had their efforts classified as "nonsensical nonsense", which was a double negative, so we assumed we were doing really well when we couldn't defend our hoop!

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

So you might as well also tell us whether the plural of this countable noun would be nonsense or nonsenses.

"In a five minutes address the man managed to utter five nonsense."
or, "In a five minutes address the man managed to utter five nonsenses."
That's one nonsense per minute, mind you!

I think he was well into the utter nonsense range!

I haven't thought of using the word in this way, but I don't see why not. However, a nonsense would be more usual, even if it had many parts.

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

.... However, a nonsense would be more usual, even if it had many parts.

He uttered a nonsense five times in five minutes?

[Thad E Ginathom]

he uttered utter nonsense.

[hrman]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

So you might as well also tell us whether the plural of this countable noun would be nonsense or nonsenses.

"In a five minutes address the man managed to utter five nonsense."
or, "In a five minutes address the man managed to utter five nonsenses."
That's one nonsense per minute, mind you!

I think the correct way is "In a five minute address", and not "minute(s)".

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by hrman

I think the correct way is "In a five minute address", and not "minute(s)".

Was thinking the same myself but wasn't sure which one is correct. I have seen it used both ways but never bothered to delve deeper.

[Thad E Ginathom]

In a five minutes address...

Hmm, wouldn't really start from here, as the old joke goes, but...

In a five-minute address.

Better would be, In his five minute address.

In the current context: He spoke nonsense for five minutes

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by faustus77

Thad Ginathon sir
Hi.
I always wondered when I read the word " costed"
Thanks for your clarification. I still think it should be cost.
Great to read your posts.
Regards

Thank you, and sorry my reply is a moth late. I only just saw your post

Yes, you are right, and, "it costed Rs.500," is entirely wrong. The correct word is cost.

We discussed this somewhere in the thread, and it was noted that the word costed does exist, but is used, for instance, by accountants in associating with estimates of building or manufacturing cost. Similarly, they may use the word costings, but we do not speak of the prices of our shopping as costings.

Here's another thing I've seen twice this weekend!

newpaper: "in the eye of a controversy"

here: "in the eye of an incident"

No: the only thing you can be in the eye of is a storm, and that metaphor is usually completely misunderstood and misused anyway. As used by our media it is invariably 100% wrong.

There is another valid use (can anybody think of any more?): Beauty is In the eye of the beholder. But notice that it applies to the person doing to the seeing, and not to the thing seen. The above mixed-up metaphors are like saying in the eye of the beauty.

[honeybee]

There is also frequent confusion about the past tense of the verb 'learn'. We wete taught that the past tense of 'to learn' is 'learnt'. But often the word 'learned' is used instead. This word actually means someone who has learnt, a learned person.

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by honeybee

There is also frequent confusion about the past tense of the verb 'learn'. We wete taught that the past tense of 'to learn' is 'learnt'. But often the word 'learned' is used instead. This word actually means someone who has learnt, a learned person.

'Learnt' is what I was taught too. I think 'learned' is used more in the US. Similar to 'dreamt' and 'dreamed'.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Didn't we do that one recently? learned/learnt dreamed/dreamt are equivalent. There is not difference, and both are correct. The meaning of learned, as in a learned person, is not different, it is additional.

Use of than without a qualifier

A headline from the gibberish-language newspaper, The New Indian Express...

I am scared of riding a horse than an elephant

What? More? Less? Those words are meaningless. How can a sub-editor be so illiterate?

The actual quote, the article reveals, is correct: the actor is "more scared."

[Turbo_asd]

Fill in the blanks with prepositions

__________ all his faults, I still like him.
I will do it __________ all you may say.

I thought 'despite' seemed like a good fit for both, but my textbook says I'm wrong. What do you guys think the answer should be should be?

[Guite]

"In spite of" should fit in both cases, in my opinion.

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by Turbo_asd

Fill in the blanks with prepositions

__________ all his faults, I still like him.
I will do it __________ all you may say.

I thought 'despite' seemed like a good fit for both, but my textbook says I'm wrong. What do you guys think the answer should be should be?

'Despite' for the first case and 'in spite of' in the second.
Though I do feel the two are essentially interchangeable.