_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Why is zero plural? (2024)
frizlab wrote 8 hours 3 min ago:
In French 0 is singular. Plurals are complicated. See [1] .
URI [1]: https://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/42/supplemental/language_p...
reverendsteveii wrote 18 hours 54 min ago:
Why are zero plural /s
amilios wrote 19 hours 31 min ago:
So here's a modern Greek perspective to add to the choir. In modern
Greek zero is indeed plural, you would say 0 βαθμοί for example
to say 0 degrees. However, in contrast to English:
1.5 books
ενάμιÏη βιβλίο -- singular!
You are functionally saying something closer to "a book and a half" in
english I guess! Actually this is an interesting duality in english:
1.5 books but a book and a half. Guess it depends on how "separate"
linguistically the numbers are: is it one book and a half book or is it
a single quantity? Greek for decimals between 1 and 2 picks the "two
quantities" approach.
csours wrote 22 hours 44 min ago:
There is 0.9 (repeating) apple.
edit:
Math is very precise, and has very obvious correct and incorrect
answers. Language much less so. So when we have a question like this,
it FEELS like there should be an obvious and precise answer because we
are talking about math, BUT we are using language to talk about math,
so we are going back to an imprecise realm; which may feel confusing
and wrong.
This is also the effect behind the engagement bait word problems and
order of operations problems you see on social media.
mcswell wrote 23 hours 25 min ago:
Because zero is not singular. In the context of English grammar,
"plural" simply means "not singular."
felideon wrote 23 hours 18 min ago:
Except...
> `1.0` books (?) â Martin Ba Commented May 22, 2024 at 13:3
:)
taeric wrote 1 day ago:
I'm curious how much of the answer to this is simply because it sounds
nicer? That is, the search is largely for technical reasons for
something to be so. But, couldn't it just as realistically be that it
is an aesthetic path that leads to this?
I see one of the comments says it rolls off the tongue nicely. I feel
that that is far far more of the reason than people are opting for in
the rest of the discussions.
andrewla wrote 1 day ago:
That it sounds nicer is equivalent to saying that a native speaker
uses it this way. There's no why to it; language evolves based on how
it is used. The aesthetics are downstream of the fact that this is
the way that native speakers use it.
The question is whether there is a rule that we can use to determine
the correct way to modify the noun which it modifies. And the answer
is ... sort of?
As an argument against the pure aesthetic argument (in the sense that
maybe the usage of it is driven by superior aesthetics) we can find
some counterexamples. We can say "there are zero marks on this ruler"
and we can also say "here is the zero mark on this ruler". Both of
these sentences make perfect sense and are immediately parsable by a
native speaker. "There is zero mark on this ruler" and "here is the
zero marks on this ruler" are clearly both wrong. The difference here
is that in one case we are using "zero" to refer to a quantity and
in the other to a non-quantity.
taeric wrote 1 day ago:
Sort of? The aesthetics are almost certainly driven by other
factors, including what phonemes are used. Is why "ya'll" is a
word in the south. It isn't like we didn't know how to say "you
all" or other similar words. Aesthetically, contracting those into
a single word was more pleasant for many people.
So, my argument is that you are looking at the words and
distinguishing the singular/plural aspect as driving why we say
certain things. I'm saying that you can use a phoneme argument for
why "there is a zero mark" sounds correct and meaningful, whereas
"there is zero marking on this ruler" starts to stretch it.
That is, allow me to rephrase my assertion. Rather than saying
there is an aesthetic argument, I'm asserting that the phonemes
involved are a larger driver than is given credit. Often with
grammar rules backfilled to solidify choices.
danans wrote 1 day ago:
It seems that from the large variation in the way different languages
treat zero, there's no significant rationale behind whether it's plural
or not, apart from following some existing (and ultimately also ad-hoc)
pattern.
It's just the way that people (via social mechanisms - mostly mimicry)
standardized expressing the absence of something.
tpoacher wrote 1 day ago:
People who claim that zero / no is always followed by the plural have
zero / no clues what's going on.
ctrlp wrote 1 day ago:
Now do "maths"
GTP wrote 1 day ago:
' âI have no legsâ means that I have 0 legs (as opposed to 1 leg or
2 legs), while âI have no legâ means that I have not any leg (i.e.,
I do not have any leg) '
made me laugh :D
Edit: To be honest, I don't see the difference between "I have 0 legs"
and "I do not have any leg", can someone explain?
cowsandmilk wrote 1 day ago:
> I do not have any leg
Iâm not sure what youâre saying, that isnât grammatically
correct.
GTP wrote 8 hours 30 min ago:
I took it form one of the Stackexchange answers, I'm not sure what
they're trying to say either.
alexey-salmin wrote 1 day ago:
Because it's not singular (ba-dum-tss)
steveBK123 wrote 1 day ago:
Two thoughts
1) Zero is expressing the absence of any, and its singular "just one"
that is a special case
2) Plurality of zero is inconsistent with a lot of more modern creates
using singular - zero carb, zero tolerance, etc. In these cases it
does look like they simply substituted the word "zero" in for "no".
amelius wrote 1 day ago:
Take this sentence:
> There is x candy on the counter.
Now you know that x is 1.
If 0 were not plural, then you wouldn't know that. Therefore it is
useful that 0 is plural.
powerhugs wrote 1 day ago:
Incorrectly top voted answers. "zeroes" is the plural form. The use of
zero in "zero 3s" is not the number 0 but an adjective, synonym to "no"
in that context.
The correct answer is the third one: [1] I guess this is one of the
reasons for the failing popularity of the Stack Exchange sites, simply
voted best answers that are incorrect.
Similar to how you will find 30 incorrect upvoted seemingly
correct-but-actually-incorrect answers to many reddit questions with
the correct answer hidden deep down in the comments with no karma.
Similar how HN is turning out lately, too.
Related:
URI [1]: https://ell.stackexchange.com/a/352496
URI [2]: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/are-llms-making-stackoverfl...
hashmush wrote 1 day ago:
This is incredibly confusing. Of course the plural of zero (as a
noun) is zero(e)s. But then you state that you understand that it's
not about the noun, and still go on to say that the answers sharing
your view are wrong..?
kmm wrote 1 day ago:
The body of the question makes it abundantly clear what the OP is
asking, which has nothing to do with the plural form of the noun
"zero". You could suggest an improvement to the title, but answering
"zeroes" and pretending it's the only correct answer is being
deliberately obtuse.
powerhugs wrote 1 day ago:
Huh? I thought I was being detailed.
oneeyedpigeon wrote 1 day ago:
I think you're misunderstanding the question â possibly for comedic
effect (?), it's hard to tell.
"zeroes" is the plural form of the noun "zero", yes. But the question
is about using the form "zero" as an adjective and how that should
affect the plurality of the noun it applies to: "zero book(s)", for
example.
powerhugs wrote 1 day ago:
I am not trying to be funny. It seems to me that you are
misunderstanding the usage of the word zero in this context, as in
absence of any. Synonymous to "no", as in "no threes".
It is not about the number 0.
oneeyedpigeon wrote 1 day ago:
OK, if you think I'm the one misunderstanding the question, can
you explain how?
The example in the question is:
> For example, if we choose two 2s, zero 3s, and one 5
That's talking about "zero 3s", not "three zeroes".
powerhugs wrote 1 day ago:
> That's talking about "zero 3s", not "three zeroes".
In this context "zero" is not a noun, but an adjective.
powerhugs wrote 1 day ago:
I was too quick to press post, and I updated my above comment
after you replied to it.
In addition, see the adj. definition of zero:
URI [1]: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/zero_n?tl=true#12099716...
cassianoleal wrote 1 day ago:
In Portuguese, where -2 < x < 2, x is singular.
* 0 thing
* 0.5 thing
* -1.3 thing
* 1.99999 thing
* -2 things
* etc
This is true at least in Brazil though I'm fairly certain it's shared
grammar with the descendants of the European barbarians who invaded it
in the 1500s.
axegon_ wrote 1 day ago:
I am not sure that it's a function of English language per se. I speak
several language and it's the same story with all of them and one of
those languages is Slavic so it comes from a very different root. That
said, Greece is a rock throw away and I think the ancient Greek
mathematicians(Pythagoras primarily) might have something to do with
it: The Egyptians were the first known to use symbols to represents
parts of something but it wasn't until the Greeks introduced fractions
to express a quantifiable representation of sub-divisions of a unit,
making the sub-division it's own unit: you need 4 * 1/4-th's of
something to make it to 1 complete unit.
Then again, I could be wrong.
pmontra wrote 1 day ago:
In Italy we would translate "two 2s, zero 3s, and one 5" as "due 2,
zero 3 e un 5". No plurals for the numbers. By the way "un" is the
"a" article and not the "uno" number. Using the number would sound
more than strange.
Languages are just what they settled down to be, until they change
little by little every day.
axegon_ wrote 1 day ago:
I speak Spanish, but it's a different story there: "dos doses, zero
treses y un cinco". Numbers can have plurals, which from what I
understand is not the case in Italian. Weird cause the languages
are very similar in general - I can somewhat easily understand
Italian, particularly reading. Listening - not so much. But as far
as grammar, they seem to be almost identical. Same with French
grammar though Spanish has the equivalent of the English present
continuous tense and French does not(also worth mentioning that I
don't speak French either, that's what my mum has told me).
Tainnor wrote 1 day ago:
Linguistically, Spanish and French are Western Romance languages
and technically should be closer to each other than Spanish and
Italian. However, French also underwent certain significant
changes (possibly due to Germanic and/or Celtic influence) that
most other Romance languages didn't, hence why it seems more
"foreign". But there are a lot of common things between French
and Spanish that Italian doesn't share (e.g. the way plurals are
formed with "s", or particular sound changes, like adding "e" in
front of certain consonant clusters, c.f. Spanish "estrella",
French "étoile", but Italian "stella")
> But as far as grammar, they seem to be almost identical.
Apart from the different plurals, probably the biggest difference
to me seems to be that Spanish has three different past tenses,
including indefinido, while the corresponding tenses in Italian
and French (passato remoto / passé simple) have completely
fallen out of use except of highly formal contexts (or, in the
case of Italian, certain Southern dialects). Instead you'd just
use the perfect.
axegon_ wrote 23 hours 44 min ago:
Well yeah... But overall numbers in French are a bit...
Weird... By the time you are a teenager, you have the math
skills of someone with a PhD in Calculus just to be able to say
how old you are. No wonder some of the best mathematicians in
history were French ;)
kolinko wrote 1 day ago:
Fun fact - in Polish we have separate forms for 1 (singular), 2-4
(plural but nit many) and everything else. Zero is in âeverything
elseâ
0 ksiÄ
żek
0.5 ksiÄ
żki
1 ksiÄ
żka
2,3,4 ksiÄ
żki
2.5 ksiÄ
żki
5 and above ksiÄ
żek
5.5 (any other fraction) ksiÄ
żki
>100 and a fraction - depends
Singular is for one.
The first plural is for things kind of treated as individual objects.
The second plural is for things that are treated as a bulk/mass.
The moment you use a fraction, the assumption is that you would need to
count all I guess, so itâs treated as individual objects.
From this perspective, zero of something is zero plural-not-easily
countable. Kind of âZero OF booksâ like âTen OF booksâ, with of
being implied by the form of the word.
ajuc wrote 18 hours 47 min ago:
We also have a separate case for missing something.
So it's "Mam 3 ksiÄ
żki" (I have 3 books) but "Nie mam 3 ksiÄ
żek"
(I don't have 3 books) or "Brakuje 3 ksiÄ
żek" (3 books are
missing).
retrac wrote 1 day ago:
The term in linguistics for a category of 3 or 4 things is "paucal".
Most languages with a paucal separate 2 from 3 or 4, resulting in
four noun categories/forms by number: singular (1), dual (2), paucal
(3 - 4? a few?) and plural (5+). That's quite a common pattern among
the world's languages. Polish and the other Slavic languages with
this feature are a little unusual in not having the separate dual. A
few languages have a trial (3) as a distinct category but it's rare.
And some languages distinguish between a greater and lesser paucal,
roughly "a few" vs "many", usually with the singular, dual and plural
as well, having 5 categories of noun number.
Languages with these features often have lots of irregularities
around them, too. In the same way that "pants" are plural for no
reason in English, eyes might be plural instead of the
obvious-seeming dual, etc. And if that seems all a bit unnecessarily
numerical, you may be right; Chinese has gotten by for thousands of
years without any plurals at all.
thaumasiotes wrote 1 day ago:
> Chinese has gotten by for thousands of years without any plurals
at all.
Chinese has plurals; 们 has no other use.
zdragnar wrote 1 day ago:
Counting words and 们 aren't the same, as they aren't
declensions. You add on the syllable rather than actually
changing the syllable of the noun itself.
Granted, that's still different from saying that Mandarin doesn't
have a concept of plural, but I think the underlying point- no
conjugation or declension- is very different from the other
languages being discussed.
Umofomia wrote 22 hours 42 min ago:
To be more accurate, 们 isn't a plural marker more because of
the fact that it's not productive[1], rather than the fact that
Chinese doesn't have declension. If 们 were able to be
suffixed to any noun to make it plural, then you could consider
it to be a plural marker, even though the noun isn't
technically declined. That's not the case anyway though, since
们 can only be used with a closed set of pronouns or in a
limited way to refer to groups represented by the noun its
attached to (in this sense it's more of a metonymic[2] marker
rather than a plural marker). For example, ç½å®®ä»¬ can be
used to translate "the White House" when it refers to the
President and his administration, and cannot be used to mean
"white houses". [1]
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_(linguistic...
URI [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy
thaumasiotes wrote 21 hours 57 min ago:
It is productive. It can't pluralize anything, but it can
pluralize anything that refers to people and it is actively
used in novel ways. I've seen someone refer to
ç¾å½çå¦å¦ä»¬; metonymy is not involved there. It just
means "American mothers", as distinct from a hypothetical
ç¾å½çå¦å¦ "America's mother".
However, the other angle on this is that Mandarin pronouns
have singular and plural forms (plurals using 们), and the
use of the correct form is obligatory, which suffices to show
that plurality exists in the language. Although it isn't the
case that 们 is unproductive, even if it was unproductive
that still wouldn't show that the language has no plurals.
> in this sense it's more of a metonymic marker rather than a
plural marker). For example, ç½å®®ä»¬ can be used to
translate "the White House" when it refers to the President
and his administration, and cannot be used to mean "white
houses"
I should note that this argument doesn't entirely hang
together. You can make "the White House" explicitly plural in
English by giving it a plural verb: [1] > The White House
have announced a comprehensive immigration reform proposal in
a bill that has been sent to congress.
How would you say that differs from ç½å®«ä»¬? Does it refer
to multiple houses?
URI [1]: https://us.iasservices.org.uk/bidens-immigration-bil...
Umofomia wrote 19 hours 51 min ago:
When the comment you replied to mentioned "Chinese has
gotten by for thousands of years without any plurals at
all", I understood it to mean that Chinese has not featured
any general system of marking plural by grammatical
means[1], which is what is usually understood by the term
"plural"[2], not that Chinese has no ability to express a
more-than-one count distinction at all (which isn't the
case in any language as far as I'm aware).
> It can't pluralize anything, but it can pluralize
anything that refers to people and it is actively used in
novel ways. I've seen someone refer to ç¾å½çå¦å¦ä»¬;
metonymy is not involved there.
It is productive in a limited sense in that way, but not as
a general plural marker as you're arguing, and it's limited
because ç¾å½çå¦å¦ä»¬ means "American mothers" in that
it necessarily refers to them as a collective group (which
I argue is an instance of metonymy) rather than a set of
more than one "American mother". For instance you cannot
say *ä¸ä¸ªç¾å½çå¦å¦ä»¬ to mean "three American
mothers"; you must instead say ä¸ä¸ªç¾å½çå¦å¦
because ç¾å½çå¦å¦ä»¬ can only ever refer to the
entire collective group.
> I should note that this argument doesn't entirely hang
together. You can make "the White House" explicitly plural
in English by giving it a plural verb
This is a feature of UK English where collective nouns
agree with plural forms of verbs. US English on the other
hand, requires the singular form[3][4]. This has no bearing
on how we analyze Chinese. [1] [2] [3] [4]
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number
URI [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plural
URI [3]: https://victoryediting.com/collective-nouns/
URI [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun#Exam...
zdragnar wrote 22 hours 1 min ago:
Yeah, that was what I meant by including "counting words"
which I now remember are better known as measure words or
classifiers.
d1sxeyes wrote 1 day ago:
Not certain about Polish any more (itâs 15 years or so since I
studied) but certainly Russian uses the genitive singular after
numbers ending in 2, 3, and 4 (e.g. 02, 23, 34, but not the
âteensâ) and genitive plural for numbers ending in 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
0). The endings here look the same.
Does Polish also use the same form for 20 as for 0 (i.e. 20 ksiÄ
żek)? As I remember it does. If I remember correctly, Polish also
differs from Russian in that it only uses the singular for 1, not for
all numbers ending in 1 (except 11).
(Note for linguists, itâs not actually quite the genitive, but
itâs close enough not to warrant its own case)
locallost wrote 1 day ago:
It's the same or similar in many if not all Slavic languages. Just
goes to show true internationalization in software is almost
impossible because you don't know all the rules in all the languages
of the world. E.g. if you treat numbers as singular like English does
you will have difficulty with Polish because you were unaware it has
a special case for 2-4. And then you can have a third language that
handles 2-7 differently.
Muromec wrote 1 day ago:
You just do (p)ngettext. It works if care for it to work and
proofread the interface instead of raw files.
Metacelsus wrote 1 day ago:
And it gets weirder. If you have 5 or more of something, you use the
neuter singular form of verbs for it.
4 books were sitting on the shelf = StaÅy 5 ksiÄ
żek na póÅce
[feminine plural verb, which makes sense]
5 books were sitting on the shelf = StaÅo 5 ksiÄ
żek na póÅce
[neuter singular???]
As someone learning Polish this is quite confusing.
alterom wrote 1 day ago:
You have an error there (bad copy-paste?).
Should be "StaÅy 4 ksiÄ
żki na póÅce".
Anyway, to make sense of the second one: treat "5 ksiÄ
żek" as "5
of books", or "a 5-set of books"
â Four books were sitting on a shelf ("books" are plural,
feminine)
â A five-set of books was sitting on a shelf ("five-set" is
singular, neutral)
Now, why 5 becomes a set and 4 doesn't is not something I have a
clue about.
But hope it helps grok how it affects the form of the noun being
enumerated :)
TeMPOraL wrote 1 day ago:
> The moment you use a fraction, the assumption is that you would
need to count all I guess, so itâs treated as individual objects.
I always explained it to myself that, when you use a fraction, you're
focusing on that one incomplete object, also calling more attention
to the individuality of objects in the set. So in case of say, "100.5
ksiÄ
żki", I like to imagine shoving ~95 books into the box very
quickly, then slowing down for the last 6 books, counting them off
one by one, to know exactly when to stop and saw the 106th book in
half.
IDK what the official justification is.
alterom wrote 1 day ago:
Interesting.
It's the opposite in Russian â it'd be "100½ ksiÄ
żek" there
(ÑÑо c половиной книжек), even though it's "½
ksiÄ
żki" (половина книжки).
"½ ksiÄ
żek" (половина книжек) is also valid, and
it means "half of (all the) books".
But in "100½", it's the whole number that determines the ending
(i.e. case) of the word.
TeMPOraL wrote 1 day ago:
FWIW, both "½ ksiÄ
żek" and "½ ksiÄ
żki" are valid Polish,
but they mean different things:
- "½ ksiÄ
żek" == "poÅowa ksiÄ
żek" == "half of the books",
and refers to half of some set, e.g. "poÅowa ksiÄ
żek spadÅa z
póÅki", "half of the books fell off the shelf". It gets tricky
when the set turns out to contain only one book, but that's not
spelling/grammar issue anymore.
- "½ ksiÄ
żki" == "póŠksiÄ
żki" or "poÅowa ksiÄ
żki" ==
"half of the book", as in "pierwszap poÅowa tej ksiÄ
żki jest
nudna", "the first half of this book is boring". There's some
difference between "póÅ" and "poÅowa" that makes them not
interchangeable in most cases, but I don't feel confident enough
to articulate a rule here.
alterom wrote 17 hours 42 min ago:
Same in Russian and Ukrainian in that regard.
bilekas wrote 1 day ago:
I actually didn't know this so it's new to me but maybe I'm missing the
nuances of English..
There is only 1 quantity in 0.. Or inversely there is a singular
ABSENSE of a quantity. So how it's explained in the answer doesn't
really explain it for me.
Edit: I also have a problem understanding "On accident" when for me
it's surely "By accident". English is strange.
helboi4 wrote 1 day ago:
Firstly, that is your interpretation of zero. It is also an abscence
of all the possible values that it could be, which is a plural
concept.
Secondly, yeah American English is moronic and full of barstadised
phrases. In the UK, we always say "by accident". We also say "I
couldn't care less" not "I could care less", the American version
which is illogical. If the meaning is to be "I care the minimum
amount possible", then only "I couldn't care less" makes sense. The
American version implies that you actually care a significant amount.
danans wrote 1 day ago:
> American English is moronic and full of barstadised phrases.
Can you point out a human language that isn't full of bastardized
phrases? I'm pretty sure that's
universal, including British English.
helboi4 wrote 7 hours 25 min ago:
I'm saying this in comparison to other forms of English. In
comparison to their British English versions, these phrases make
no logical sense. That is just true. There's a direct analogue to
compare it to.
Edit: Also, Americans themselves have complained to me that
British English is too fancy. And when I look at the sentences
they are describing, it's just someone using an unremarkably
intelligent and varied vocabulary. Meanwhile, educated American
public figures speak like they are talking to children. Im not
even talking about someone as verbally challenged as the current
president. By their own admission, it seems that American English
is a dumbed-down variant.
sitharus wrote 1 day ago:
The answer is thatâs just the way English is. Exactly 1 is
singular, everything else is plural (mostly).
âOn accidentâ is American English, as a British English speaker
Iâd consider it a grammatical mistake. The same goes with âI
forgot it at homeâ and similar constructs. However theyâre
correct American English.
oneeyedpigeon wrote 1 day ago:
I think the reason that "accident" is confusing is because of "I
did it on purpose". As a fellow British English speaker, I would
never say "by purpose!". By and large, I think that US English
tends to be more logical.
xnorswap wrote 1 day ago:
There are a few things like this which really sound weird to a
British ear.
Another example is the use of "Write" in the sentence, "I wrote
them". This is completely wrong to the British ear, which would be
"I wrote to them".
Karellen wrote 1 day ago:
"I wrote them" doesn't sound completely wrong to a British ear -
it just gets misunderstood! I thought it sounded like exactly the
correct way to say "I wrote the letters", until I got to the last
couple of words in your post and had to reinterpret it. :-)
xnorswap wrote 1 day ago:
Quite, I struggled to formulate the example because indeed
reading it the interpretation is that "them" could mean
letters, and so doesn't sound completely as wrong as it does in
the context of a person.
A better example would have been "I wrote Alice last week".
Correct US English, utterly grating to British English. (
Technically still might not grate if your brain jumps to Alice
being a Poem or other work of art! )
Because in British English we write letters, we don't write
people. I don't know the term for it, it's not transitive vs
intransitive, it's the verb object having a different
restriction.
philipwhiuk wrote 1 day ago:
It sounds wrong to this British ear.
"There was a problem at the mill so I wrote them" - this sounds
wrong
"The mill workers were complaining so I wrote them a letter" -
this is fine
"The mill workers were complaining so I wrote to them" - this
is also fine
Karellen wrote 21 hours 57 min ago:
In my example, the "them" isn't referring to the recipients
of the letters. It's referring to the letters themselves.
Mallory: "The mill received a series of letters. Those
letters are evidence. Now, we're not leaving here until I
find out who wrote those letters. Alice, did you write them?
Bob, did you?"
Carol: "I wrote them."
twnettytwo wrote 1 day ago:
> I forgot it at home
As a non-native speaker, I find the sentence equally disconcerting,
but it leaves me wondering what one would use to say something to
that effect.
oneeyedpigeon wrote 1 day ago:
"I left it at home" is common, but doesn't have the exact same
meaning. Tbh, I don't think there really is a way to say that
succinctly in British Englishâwe would probably say "I left it
at home", "I forgot to bring it", orâif the full meaning is
strictly necessaryâ"I forgot it, it's at home".
Really, "I forgot it at home" is short for "I forgot to bring it;
I left it at home".
gilleain wrote 1 day ago:
Incidentally i see 'on accident' more from Americans. In British
English we tend to use 'by', so 'on' sounds a little strange but I've
grown to like it recently.
kevincox wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah "on accident" jumps out as wrong to me (a Canadian) but I can
appreciate this it is symmetric with "on purpose". I've never heard
anyone say "by purpose".
tuvang wrote 1 day ago:
I figured it is because most things in nature exist in multitudes, so
there being 0 indicates an absence of multitude.
For example: There are trees in this field. There are 0 trees in this
field.
Singular is the special case, similar to square x rectangle relation.
MadcapJake wrote 1 day ago:
This matches my intuition. Zero is synonymous with "the absence of
any X".
The singular equivalent would be perhaps "non-" or "-less".
Hot take: zero is a math concept and math deals with multitudes only
(even under one, you're dealing with a multitude of parts). The
actual irregularity is the usage of singular noun form in a math
context.
bsdz wrote 1 day ago:
All even numbers are plural ;-)
stepbeek wrote 1 day ago:
As are all primes!
mkl wrote 1 day ago:
Sure, but that doesn't answer the question, as 0 is not prime.
BossingAround wrote 1 day ago:
Ah yes, I'd like three cake please, and 5 cup of coffee.
Quekid5 wrote 1 day ago:
"A implies B" does not mean "B implies A".
BossingAround wrote 1 day ago:
Of course, but you're forgetting the context. In your world, OP's
comment must be simply nonsense.
The sun is warm.
seba_dos1 wrote 1 day ago:
Did you mean "why are zero plural"?
dmurray wrote 1 day ago:
"Why are zero plural?"
LeonB wrote 1 day ago:
âI found a body with no head.â (singular)
âI found a body with no legs.â
(plural)
As opposed to:
âI found a body with no heads.â (Weird alien concept!)
âI found a body with no leg.â
(Ambiguous meaning)
âI found a body with no left leg.â
(Zero of âleft legâ is not plural, while âzero of legâ is
plural.)
Consider, Alien Crimescene show:
I found a body. Someone had chopped off the leftmost head. The
remaining heads stared at me with their 47 dead eyes.
Oh trigger warning, gore, btw.
kgeist wrote 1 day ago:
Russian has singular, plural and paucal (reserved for small numbers:
2-4). Interestingly, zero is plural, not paucal:
1 kot "1 cat"
3 kota "3 cats"
but:
5 kotov "5 cats"
0 kotov "0 cats"
lIl-IIIl wrote 1 day ago:
Also 101 becomes singular again, as on "101 kot".
There are websites that capture these rules for all common languages,
to assist localization and translators. [1] English is
nplurals=2; plural=(n != 1);
Russian is much more complex:
nplurals=3; plural=(n%10==1 && n%100!=11 ? 0 : n%10>=2 && n%10<=4 &&
(n%100<10 || n%100>=20) ? 1 : 2);
URI [1]: https://docs.translatehouse.org/projects/localization-guide/...
SilasX wrote 22 hours 33 min ago:
English has the same issue with ordinals. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th ...
then back to 101st, 102nd.
msuvakov wrote 1 day ago:
Same in Serbo-Croatian:
1 maÄka
2-4 maÄke
5+ maÄaka
0 maÄaka
PinkSheep wrote 1 day ago:
> Slavic family: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Serbian, Croatian
URI [1]: https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html#i...
inopinatus wrote 1 day ago:
Apropos of which I learned today that some languages have not merely a
plural, but a whole complex of representations for cardinality,
including rather more of the counting values than I expected, and
variations for uncertainty and optionality (some might say,
superposition).
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number#Types_of_numb...
OJFord wrote 1 day ago:
More interesting is to compare languages. Other than native English, I
only know Hindi (plural zero) and French (singular zero).
I wonder what and why the divide is, perhaps especially when among
these three at least I believe zero has a common conceptual origin in
al-KhvÄrizmÄ« (post Roman).
crabbone wrote 1 day ago:
In Hebrew there's a dual beside singular and plural. It's used for
things / body parts that come in twos, like legs, pants, scissors
etc. Typically, these same nouns don't have a proper plural form, or
the plural form is very rarely used / means something else.
It's a little weird to use Hebrew word for zero to say that one
doesn't have something: it feels like it's been copied from English,
but not weird enough for native speakers not to use it. So, when
someone says "there are zero pants in the shop", they'd use the dual
form.
In other situations, when nouns have typical singular and plural
forms, and one uses "zero" to mean that there are none available,
then most of the time, they'd use plural, except for cases where
singular can stand for plural, which is typical for units, currency,
"times". So, while maybe not grammatically correct enough to write
in a book, it doesn't sound foreign to say "zero meter" to mean "very
close" or "zero shekel" to mean "free of charge".
Russian and relatives act very similar to English in this regard: I
cannot think of a case where it would've been OK to use "zero" with
singular noun (outside of nouns that don't have plural form). But
using "zero" in this context is not a natural way for anyone to
describe the absence of thing. It usually sounds as if the speaker
wants to prank the listener who probably expected a non-zero value.
Similar to how it would sound if in English you'd use negative
numbers for the same purpose: "I have negative one apple" is, I
suppose, grammatically correct, but isn't a phrase you'd expect if
asking anyone about the number of apples they have.
sedatk wrote 1 day ago:
In Turkish, numbers donât affect plurality: 0 apple, 1 apple, 2
apple. But you still say âI ate all the applesâ in plural.
another-dave wrote 1 day ago:
Irish is the same â you count with the singular noun, but use
plural nouns elsewhere
makeitdouble wrote 1 day ago:
To nitpick, French uses both [1] On the more general point, as I
understand it comes down to what the speakers expect for the
quantity. If it is generally expected to be plural, zero will
probably be plural as well, if singular is more usual zero will
follow.
URI [1]: https://dictionnaire.lerobert.com/guide/accord-du-nom-apres-...
whycome wrote 1 day ago:
You...want to know how zero is divided?
dylan604 wrote 1 day ago:
Everyone complains about not dividing by zero, but just multiply 0
by the inverse and everything is good.
croes wrote 1 day ago:
Because zero is not singular.
If you take singular as equal to 1 and plural as the opposite of
singular itâs obvious
xdennis wrote 1 day ago:
Because speakers of English arrived at the arbitrary decision that it
is.
Whenever you're faced with the question: "why is x y?", you should ask
yourself "is x y?". In this case, zero is plural... in English. But not
in all languages! (I think in Arabic zero is singular.)
You can read about plural rules in different languages here[1]. For
example some languages have three numbers: singular, dual, and plural.
This is what Proto Indo European had and some descendants still do.
Have you ever found it weird how "pants" or "glasses" are kinda plural
but also kinda singular?
An interesting table to look at is here[2]. It compares all the rules
in various languages for how to form cardinals. For example, English
has two numbers: singular and plural and two rules to determine it: `n
== 1`, `n != 1`.
My language, Romanian, also has only singular and plural, but we have
three different categories: singular, plural without "of", plural with
"of": `n == 1`, `n != 1 && n % 100 == 1..19`, `...the remaining
cases...`. So we say "3319 horses", but "3320 of horses". It's very
weird, but that's how languages work.
[1]
URI [1]: https://cldr.unicode.org/index/cldr-spec/plural-rules
URI [2]: https://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/46/supplemental/language_p...
mayd wrote 1 day ago:
The obvious answer is: because zero is not one. Singular means one.
Plural means not one.
delibes wrote 1 day ago:
There is no spoon
tim333 wrote 1 day ago:
That's because it would get stuck when it's below zero centigrade.
mayd wrote 1 day ago:
"I have no spoon." Correct in a situation where exactly one spoon is
expected.
"There are no spoons here." Correct in a situation where there could
be zero, one or more spoons.
tsimionescu wrote 1 day ago:
There is no spoon in this room. Equivalent to "There are no spoons
in this room".
yorwba wrote 1 day ago:
The information they communicate about the number of spoons in
the room is the same.
The information they communicate about the state of mind of the
participants in the conversation is not the same.
thayne wrote 1 day ago:
None of the answers give a really satisfactory answer for the
underlying reason.
I have a theory, although I don't have any evidence. Zero is
arelatively recent concept, and probably became part of the language
after the rules for pluralization were well established. So when zero
came into use it was used similar to negating a plural, like "no
widgets" or "not any widgets", so the plural was used. Or maybe it felt
unnatural to use singular with a number other than one.
egypturnash wrote 1 day ago:
Wikipedia tells me that the first known usage of "zero" in English
was 1598, certainly well after the rules for plurals were set.
Wikipedia also tells me that people started speaking what we now call
Old English around 450, and also tells me that there were examples of
something close to the idea of "zero" going back as far as 1770BC,
although the usual history of "zero" in English just goes back to
borrowing it from Sanskrit, where it might have first appeared as
early as ~300±80 but definitely appeared in 458.
thayne wrote 1 day ago:
> there were examples of something close to the idea of "zero"
going back as far as 1770BC
Ah, yes, I was thinking of in Europe, and as a number, but I failed
to specify that.
egypturnash wrote 1 day ago:
I suspected as much, but felt like being pedantic. :)
ks2048 wrote 1 day ago:
The answer says zero is treated as "plural" because we say "0 books".
Interestingly, we can say either:
1. "There are no books on this subject"
2. "There is no book on this subject"
cgriswald wrote 1 day ago:
Itâs because youâre talking about absence or the negation of
presence.
Youâre sentences say:
1. There are not any books on the subject.
2. There is not a single book on the subject.
(1) uses the absence of multiple and (2) uses the absence of single.
Neither actually uses zero even though the quantity indicated is
zero.
Archelaos wrote 1 day ago:
Question from someone whose native language is not English.
I often come across sentences that combine "There is no" with a
plural direct object, such as:
"There is no books on this subject"
Is this also correct English?
sbelskie wrote 1 day ago:
Not in standard American English to the best of my knowledge, but
itâs not impossible some dialects use this construction.
thaumasiotes wrote 1 day ago:
American English is shifting strongly in the direction of always
using "is" when the subject is dummy "there".
It's also shifting to using schwa rather than FLEECE in "the"
when it is followed by a vowel.
On the internet, the -en form of verbs seems to be disappearing
entirely, with constructions like "I should have went
[wherever]".
arijun wrote 1 day ago:
No, you still need subject-verb agreement. Either âthere are no
books,â or the less common âthere is no book.â
You might see the latter in the case of a definite subject: âPass
me the book on the subject.â âThere is no book on the
subject.â
dominicrose wrote 1 day ago:
"0" is the same thing as "no" and thus it is a negation of something.
Why would you remove the plural from something if your intention is
to negate it?
If someone drinks your beers, then you have no beers because it's a
negation of multiple beers.
If you don't know how many beers there were then it's likely there
was more than one anyway.
ps: we can also say the beers were mutiplied by 0.
RiverCrochet wrote 1 day ago:
"0 x" is only valid if x is a countable noun.
"No x" is valid for any noun.
Liquids are an example of non-countable nouns - "I have no water"
but "I have zero oranges."
Some thoughts:
- English requires the use of an article with singular nouns,
because the question of "which X" is important.
- This question is impossible for plural nouns (no "which X" when X
is 2 or more), and where the noun doesn't actually exist - because
it's meant as a type or because it physically doesn't exist.
- So these situations require no article to be used.
- English is so flexible that a phrase like "two oranges" can be
"singularized" and therefore a sentence like this is possible:
"Take the two oranges and put them here." What's implied and meant
here is "1 group of two oranges" so it's still consistent.
- That's all brought up because it's another place in the language
where zero and plural obey the same logic.
thaumasiotes wrote 1 day ago:
> English requires the use of an article with singular nouns,
because the question of "which X" is important.
Well, that obviously can't be true, or other languages would have
the same requirement.
RiverCrochet wrote 23 hours 8 min ago:
I guess I should have made that say "important to English."
Languages definitely impose "models" for various things and
those are certainly different amongst each language.
rekabis wrote 1 day ago:
I suspect it is the difference between saying â1 bookâ and
ânone of the booksâ. The former is singling out a single book,
but saying zero books is highlighting the negative of all books.
Ergo, â0 booksâ is plural, because it is excluding all the books
instead of including a specific subset.
timewizard wrote 1 day ago:
"There isn't a book on this subject"
heisenzombie wrote 1 day ago:
Something can be âa bookâ on the subject, or âthe bookâ on
the subject in the sense of the one commonly accepted authoritative
reference. I read the above as referring to those two senses
respectively.
whycome wrote 1 day ago:
French, which treats zero as a singular I believe has a weird way of
saying "no one"
Personne on its own means ''no one'', but une personne means a
person.
Xmd5a wrote 1 day ago:
And "rien" (nothing) used to mean something (via latin "res")
lloeki wrote 1 day ago:
"Un petit rien" => a small thing
Typically used in "les petits riens de la vie", meaning the small
things in life that may be overlooked but constitute the true
things that make it worth living.
Tainnor wrote 1 day ago:
IIRC, formally "personne" has to be used with the "ne" negation in
order to mean 'nobody', such as "personne ne l'a vu", which makes a
certain kind of sense ('a person hasn't seen it' -> nobody has seen
it). But French people usually drop "ne" in spoken language.
bkazez wrote 1 day ago:
âSans personneâ means âwithout anyoneâ and has no
âneâ.
Tainnor wrote 1 day ago:
Ok, but it literally means "without person", so is equally
unsuprising.
whycome wrote 1 day ago:
You're right as far as I know.
But it's also funny to type in both "nobody" and "anybody" into
Google translate and they both translate to "personne".
bee_rider wrote 1 day ago:
I was thinking of this too, oddly, also examples around books.
I vaguely feel like âno bookâ could also be parsed as⦠not one
book, maybe? Like weâre saying there isnât even one book on the
subject. Maybe?
I dunno. The scenario that popped into my head was: what if you had a
bookshop, where the shopkeeper would sometimes pick out books for
you. If they said âI have no books for you today,â Iâd imagine
that they just generally didnât find any books for you. Meanwhile
if they said âI have no book for you today,â I guess Iâd expect
that you are waiting for a particular book, and it didnât come in
today. Somehow, there is a difference between the absence of a book
and the absence of any books, even though in fact there are zero
books in either case.
csours wrote 22 hours 43 min ago:
no book -> not a book
ks2048 wrote 1 day ago:
Yes, I think (2) is sort of like saying "not even 1" and more
likely a response to someone saying there is a book, whereas (1) is
a more common phrasing and is just saying how many books there are.
inopinatus wrote 1 day ago:
I use Xero's books.
alterom wrote 1 day ago:
Be careful. That could be a violation of the DMCA, unless you do
that one chapter at a time.
thehappypm wrote 1 day ago:
Zenoâs book keeps eluding me, I keep getting halfway closer to
finishing it
Terr_ wrote 1 day ago:
I think it extends from whatever rules govern the much-more-influential
word "No", particularly for items which aren't normally capped at 1.
Notice how these are all plural, and in each case "no" could be
substituted with "zero":
* "My shelf contains no books."
* "Snails have no legs."
* "What if there were no stars in the sky?"
You can't simply replace those examples with a singular noun: You're
either forced to refactor the grammar or you end up with something that
sounds weird/archaic. Ex:
* "My shelf contains no book." [Weird/archaic]
* "My shelf does not contain a book. [Refactored]
zelos wrote 1 day ago:
"My car has no steering wheel", though, so isn't it related to how
many you'd expect?
schwartzworld wrote 1 day ago:
Exactly right. Op uses âsnails have no legsâ because most
things have 2+ legs or none. But snails do have one foot. If there
was a snail without a foot, youâd say âthis one has no footâ
Terr_ wrote 1 day ago:
I'd say steering wheels are "normally capped at 1"... although I
recall one distinct occasion where I expected two steering wheels,
in a training car for new drivers. Alas, it seemed the local
school-district could only afford a car with a second brake-pedal
for the instructor, which did very little to help my anxieties.
So my first time behind the (singular) wheel and they told me to
pull onto a major street next to the school, without even doing
circles in a parking lot or anything. I guess they just expected
most students had already done some illicit/private driving?
Anywho, it was more stressful than any rollercoaster and I had
shaky legs when my turn was finally over.
(Then I put an onion on my belt, as was the style of the time...)
Phlogistique wrote 1 day ago:
In France, training cars have only one steering wheel, and the
instructor is perfectly able to drive the vehicle by steering
with his extended left arm.
svachalek wrote 21 hours 32 min ago:
This is standard in the US as well, probably almost everywhere.
But as the comment says, there's always an exception.
oneeyedpigeon wrote 1 day ago:
The exceptions are always fun:
URI [1]: https://imgs.classicfm.com/images/41395?crop=16_9&width=...
eesmith wrote 1 day ago:
You are using examples which are typically plural. Consider instead
these singular forms:
"My shelf contains no Elf-on-a-Shelf" / "My shelf contains no
elephant" / "My shelf contains no Hemingway book." / "My shelf
contains no book by Hemingway."
(For an example of the third: "Don't look there for a copy of 'The
Old Man and the Sea'? I detest Hemingway, and my shelf contains no
Hemingway book." In this case, 'no' means something like 'not even
one'.)
As for the others, "legs" rarely come in a singular form. There is
(usually) only one king for an entire population, and there is
(usually) only one soul per creature, so these singular forms are
just fine:
"Snails have no king." / "Snails have no soul."
There's usually a lot of stars, but our solar system has but one sun,
making the following singular form just fine:
"What if there were no sun in the sky?"
philipwhiuk wrote 1 day ago:
The 'correct' English is "no books by Hemmingway"
eesmith wrote 1 day ago:
That's "Hemingway" ;)
I think the original sentence was already pretty weird, since I
wouldn't say "My shelf contains no books." making it hard for me
to judge what is not weird.
However, "Does your shelf contain a book by Hemingway?" sounds
equally correct to "No, my shelf contains no book by Hemingway."
And equally correct to "My shelf contains no books."
eesmith wrote 21 hours 8 min ago:
Upon review, I realized the parallel construction in "No, my
shelf contains no book by Hemingway, but it does contain one by
Hemmingway" would help smooth things out.
More to the point, [1] has this real-world example: "Although
Craneâs list of books at Brede Place contains no book by
James Fenimore Cooper, he obviously knew his Cooper."
URI [1]: https://archive.org/details/stephencranebiog00stal/pag...
bee_rider wrote 1 day ago:
âMy shelf contains no bookâ almost wants to become âmy shelf
contains no such book!â to my eye. Like the book is cursed or
forbidden, haha.
twiceaday wrote 1 day ago:
I have no idea what you are talking about. /s
inopinatus wrote 1 day ago:
[A lesser light asks Ummon⫽
What are the activities of a sramana>⫽
Ummon answers⫽
I have not the slightest ideaâ⫽
The dim light then says⫽
Why havenât you any idea>⫽
Ummon replies⫽
I just want to keep my no-idea]
â
Terr_ wrote 1 day ago:
I'm not seeing a "zero" in there that would allow us to test if it
can be replaced with "no."
I would not expect that no->zero is, er, grammatically symmetric to
zero->no.
inopinatus wrote 1 day ago:
空
Terr_ wrote 1 day ago:
Isn't it usually ç¡ for zen koans?
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)
inopinatus wrote 18 hours 29 min ago:
Ummon understood nothing.
9rx wrote 1 day ago:
> You can't naively rewrite those examples with a singular
"What if there was no star in the sky?" does not sound particularly
weird, and we can find instances of people using that exact phrase.
If we focus on the key aspect of that statement, "no star in the sky"
appears to be commonly used.
rogual wrote 7 hours 1 min ago:
It sounds natural to me only if you're expecting exactly one star.
For example:
The Three Wise Men are back. But this time, there's no star in the
sky to guide them.
bee_rider wrote 1 day ago:
It is possible Iâve made a completely imaginary link, but âno
star in the skyâ sounds slightly odd but in a poetic way. In
particular âno starâ seems pretty close to ânot a star.â I
mean, zero stars is technically zero stars.
But if someone says âThere was no star in the sky,â I parse
that as something like: An astonishingly dark night, I searched the
sky quite carefully and found not even one star.
Meanwhile I parse âno stars in the skyâ as: a very dark night,
I didnât see any stars.
Of course really, it is always a matter of degree technically,
right? The stars are always there. They are just sometimes
attenuated to the point where your eye doesnât detect them.
Terr_ wrote 1 day ago:
> "What if there was no star in the sky?" does not sound
particularly weird
I disagree: The most-charitable scenario I can think of is that
someone has context-shifted from regular "stars" to "our sun, Sol,
which is technically a star even though we typically consider it
separate from the rest."
In other words, it involves a situation where someone is assuming
the amount is capped at 1. (Yes, I know binary stars exist.)
Compare:
* "What if there was no star for Earth to orbit?" [Works because =1
is the normal assumption in this context]
* "What if there was no star in the night sky?" [This is weird.]
* "What if there was no constellation?" [This is also weird.]
9rx wrote 1 day ago:
> I disagree
With what? English is defined by use, and we can find untold
examples of "No star in the sky."
merlynkline wrote 1 day ago:
> we can find untold examples of "No star in the sky."
But the original example was "What if there was no star in the
sky?" so your example is irrelevant. The original example
sounds weird (to me, a native speaker). But "No star in the sky
is a triangle" sounds OK and contains your example phrase.
hnlmorg wrote 1 day ago:
There are? A quick search in DDG didnât find any examples.
However I did get multiple examples of âstarsâ (plural).
While English is defined by use, that doesnât mean that all
forms of slang automatically become grammatically correct.
For example: âno star in the skyâ might be common
vernacular in some regions but it wouldnât be appropriate to
use in formal writing. Itâs also not a phrasing Iâve
encountered before.
Terr_ wrote 1 day ago:
> we can find untold examples
"All birds have eyes" != "All things that have eyes are birds."
My hypothesis is that wherever we speak about "zero" and some
quantity, it seems like we can substitute "no", and the
pluralization rules we'd use for "no" are being inherited.
In contrast, it sounds like you're going the opposite
direction, starting with sentences that contain "no" where we
cannot drop-in "zero". For example, "No star in the sky is
green" cannot become "Zero star in the sky is green."
9rx wrote 1 day ago:
> If I say all rodents are mammals, you can't disprove that
just by pointing out the existence of dogs and cats.
Without a full understanding of the intent and background
behind that statement that is not clear. It might be
disprovable under some circumstances. If we take it to the
logical extreme, the words absolutely could be defined such
that it is disprovable, so it obviously could be.
Is that likely? In this case, probably not, but it becomes
more likely when there is more fractured use. Consider tech
jargon. The marjory of the discussions on HN are parties
talking past each other because they came with different
understandings of what words/phrases mean.
> "No star in the sky is green"
I wrote "No star in the sky" to try and steer us away from
different contexts. While I acknowledge that such usage also
exists, that is outside of what I was trying to refer to and
I think you will agree that in your interpretation that usage
is not in line with what we are talking about.
Such is the downfall of languages made up on the spot as they
are used. All you can do is try and convey something to the
recipient, and sometimes you'll fail. This ended up being a
great example of exactly what we're talking about!
mayd wrote 1 day ago:
This example does sound wrong to a native English speaker.
It contains a subjunctive mood construct and the correct version
would be:
"What if there were no stars in the sky?"
tsimionescu wrote 1 day ago:
"What if there were no star in the sky?" also works even if you
want to use the subjunctive.
Note that not all native speakers of English use or prefer this
type of construction. Also, this use of "were" instead of "was"
is sometimes now called irrealis and considered separate from the
subjunctive (which is then used to refer only to constructions
like "it's important that you be here early tomorrow").
philipwhiuk wrote 1 day ago:
It may found in usage, but then so is "liek"..
At the end of the day there is accepted grammar and there is
actual usage.
If you ask people for the accepted grammar they will give you
something most people accept. Which is not "What if there were
no star in the sky?"
hgomersall wrote 1 day ago:
It doesn't really. I'd immediately think "what about the rest
of them?". "Not a star" works, but that's because it is made
indefinite by the article. I wonder if the point here is that
in English, dropping the article implies "the" in a way it
doesn't in other languages.
thrance wrote 1 day ago:
In French, the official rule from our (way too expensive) Académie
Française is, that it's plural if you have at least x of it, where
|x|â¥2.
seszett wrote 1 day ago:
The Académie française does not edict official rules. Nobody does,
there is no official governing authority for the French language but
the ministry of Education is the main reference in France. Their
rules are generally used for official documents, and since they
decide what gets taught to children that's what becomes the normal
language when the children become adults.
Also, it costs about 1 million euros per year[0], I wouldn't call
that very expensive on the scale of a country like France. Even if
it's absolutely useless.
In practice, zero is normally singular in French unless you want to
show that there is none of a number of things ("zéro produits
artificiels", "zéro émissions").
[0]
URI [1]: https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2017/12/14/bonjour-combi...
thrance wrote 1 day ago:
Last I heard it was closer to 5 millions, which regardless of the
amount goes directly into the pockets of some reactionary old
dudes.
They don't make a rule book, but they often make blog posts in
which they clarify how they want "proper french" to look like.
seszett wrote 1 day ago:
> they often make blog posts in which they clarify how they want
"proper french" to look like.
Anybody has the right to do that, they're mostly writers so they
have an opinion on the language, but at the same time they're not
linguists so they can't really be a prescriptive source. They
just give their (usually reactionary) opinion.
I was just making clear that they don't make the rules. The
Ministry of Education kinda does, and is often at odds with the
Académie especially when it comes to the orthography reforms.
tsimionescu wrote 1 day ago:
Would anyone, even a member of the Academy, write "il y a 1.33 femme
pour chaque homme"?
JadeNB wrote 1 day ago:
What would it mean for x to be negative, if x is how many of
something you have?
seszett wrote 1 day ago:
"Il fait -2 degrés ce matin".
JadeNB wrote 22 hours 1 min ago:
Sure, the temperature can be negative, but I'd have trouble
understanding that as "I have -2 degrees" (and, if I'm
understanding the French correctly, that's not what it means even
literally).
post-it wrote 1 day ago:
You can have negative dollars.
readthenotes1 wrote 1 day ago:
Funny that 1 litre is singular but 1.0 lires is plural even though 1.0
is more precisely singular than 1.
IOW, English is screwy
Dalewyn wrote 1 day ago:
1 feet long cable.
10 foot long pole.
croes wrote 1 day ago:
Itâs the same in German.
Not for liter because the German Liter is also its plural form.
stephen_g wrote 1 day ago:
I might just take it that the special case is more for the word
'one', not the value of one.
Or perhaps more for one of a discreet object, where the litre is
considered as a single thing but 1.0 is implying a continuous
measurement so it changes how we think of it?
cies wrote 1 day ago:
I disagree 1.0 is more precise one than 1.
Both in speaking language, and in quite some programming languages
"1" is assumed to be an integer, and "1.0" is assumed to be a number
with one decimal (something akin to a float). And I'd say integer "1"
is the most precise type of one.
If we are rounding numbers you are right though...
round_to_int(0.5000000 to 1.499999) -> 1
round_to_one_decimal(0.9500000 to 1.049999) -> 1.0
Terr_ wrote 1 day ago:
> I disagree 1.0 is more precise one than 1.
It depends on the context/subtext: Is the other person trying to
communicate something extra by adding the .0 portion?
Some are, some aren't. A programmer might use it to distinguish a
data-type even though they are otherwise equal, an engineer might
use it for significant-figures, etc.
d99kris wrote 1 day ago:
If you write it out as "one litre" vs. "one point zero litres" it
becomes a little bit more consistent though.
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