On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 10:18:03AM +0800, Andy Sy wrote: > Interestingly enough, I have the same problem with > people using the term 'emails'. But usage-wise, > a lot of people seem to have fallen into spelling > its plural with an 's'. > > What do the grammar gods say about this? I still > think it should be used as a mass noun, but know > I've heard broadcasters on big news organizations > like BBC using the term 'emails'.
My wife still pluralizes nouns that are meant to denote groups of items, i.e. "mail", "junk", "stuff", etc. She sometimes also uses the word as a singlular, such that when I would say a "piece of junk" she would say "a junk". She's not the only Filipin(a|o) that I know who makes such usage. I don't care, as long as I understand the meaning. There are plenty of other grammatical differences between American English and Filipino English, and I've noticed that a lot of phrases used in the Philippines are grammatically correct, according to the Queen's English, yet are phrased quite differently than we would use in America. One example was a sign I saw at MegaMall in the restroom, which said something along the lines of "Do not use the hand dryer for other purposes" or something like that. In America, it would be stated as "Hand dryer is to be used only for drying hands". Neither is incorrect, and the result is the same, but it's stated differently. Anyway, looks like this thread is fodder for plug-misc... Michael -- Michael Darrin Chaney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.michaelchaney.com/ -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
