Heh

[karohemd]

Tesco checks out wording change This has bugged me for years!

While on the subject, what's wrong with this? (at the bottom of the page)

Shouldn't it be "Features, Views, Analyses"?

Comments

[new-brunette.livejournal.com]

I don't know why they couldn't have just gone with "or fewer" - I think Waitrose do.

It's reasonable to use Analysis in a more general sense, indicating a collection of of Analyses. Go there for news; there for weather; there for the tv guide; there for features; there for views and there for analysis. Yep. I'd say Analyses would be more cumbersome under the circumstances.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I agree.

*nods* It's more a matter of style here. If you're using the plural for feature and view in the heading, you should use it for analysis as well.

[omentide.livejournal.com]

I'd read it as features, views and analysis of those features and views.

You could, theoretically, analyse them all in one chunk?

I am not enough of a grammarian to know the correct words, but whilst features and views are clearly plural nouns, I don't think analysis is being used as a noun here. Is that a gerund? I get horribly muddled by Turkish gerunds.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I'll put it more simply (in combination with my reply to bateleur below): "Apples, pears and cherry" wouldn't work, "Apples, pears and other fruit" would (fruit here being the category of food rather than the individual fruit). However, from reading various comments now I'm not sure now if "analysis" can't be used the same way I used "fruit" in my example.

Er, don't ask me. I generally know how to use language properly but grammatical terminology has always been one of my weak points.
A gerund in English is generally the "-ing" form of a verb.

[omentide.livejournal.com]

As in when the -ing form is used as a noun(ish)?

You see, I think I am reading that analysis as 'and the analysis thereof' with analysis meaning more like 'analysing' as a gerund (we think).

I am now confused. I shall go and clean something.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

That's the one.

Ah, OK. I thought of them as separate items.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Analyses is plural, but I don't think analysis is necessary singular. In particular, I think one can validly talk about "some analysis". I read it as being used in this sense by the BBC.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I'd agree if analysis didn't have a plural. It might well be one of those cases where my feeling for the language fails me, though.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

'analysis' feels right to me here. Trying to justify that feeling...

Some words have a plural which conveys a slightly different sense, of several complete units. Maybe particularly where the form 'piece of X' is common. Compare 'work' or 'cheese' or 'writing'. 'The works of Shakespeare' implies his plays, etc, as individual entities; 'the work of Shakespeare' draws attention to continuities across different works. 'cheeses' implies several blocks of the stuff, 'cheese' doesn't. So 'analyses' : several distinct pieces of writing, not connected; 'analysis': thoughts with some kind of continuity between them.

Plus, there's the problem that 'news' (& 'views', to a lesser extent) is a plural in form, but not in sense. The bbc aren't pluralising 'here is a new, and a view, and an analysis'.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

err...except they used 'features' not 'news', so half of what I just wrote is nonsense.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

You're getting closer to what I mean. If the heading said "news, rubbish, analysis", I wouldn't have a problem.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Perhaps there is only one person analysing one thing.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

I think analysis can be used as a countable or a mass noun. "Much analysis is flawed" and "Many analyses are flawed" both sound fine, in a way that "Much feature is boring" or "Much view is unsupported" do not. Similarly, I could imagine saying "I always go to the BBC News site for in-depth analysis".

I also have no problem with supermarkets have "X items or less" checkouts. We don't make a count/non-count distinction for "more", and nobody seems particularly inconvenienced by the lack of one, even though the same theoretical possibility of ambiguity exists. (E.g. does "There are more serious accidents in France than Belgium" indicate a greater number of accidents, or accidents of greater severity?)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your analysis of this post. :o)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

(E.g. does "There are more serious accidents in France than Belgium" indicate a greater number of accidents, or accidents of greater severity?)

Yes.

(Sorry, couldn't resist!)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Well said: the less / fewer distinction is a pretty silly, recent and arbitrary one really, like many "rules" in English. Pedantic wibbling about this sort of thing, when the meaning is being communicated perfectly clearly and effectively either way, seems a bit of a waste of mental / emotional effort.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

(Sorry, that seems a bit rude now -- I do find it a bit annoying though when people bang on about correct ways to use English. To me, one of the delights of language is that there are lots of ways to say things, none of which need necessarily be considered more or less correct.)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

No need to apologise.
This also goes back to the discussion about accepting common spelling errors as correct which I objected to as well. I guess it's something where my German genes, my education (20 years of learning German, 16 years of learning English) and my job are coming through.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Maybe I spent too long working as an editor ;-)