日志

多多是多？

热度 11已有 454 次阅读2019-3-16 12:29 |个人分类:点点滴滴

2019-3-15

昨天是派呆，每年这天的下午6点28分，MIT新生放榜。前期录取大陆考生剃光，这次常规招生放榜，据说只从上海录取了两个。

闲话少叙，继续昨天的话题，探讨多多才是多？

看到如下一个帖子，说“a few 是五，several 是七”。这和传统中医上“豆腐皮是滑的，麻油也是滑的，在胎里的孩子胞衣滑了，容易下地”，有异曲同工之妙：

I don’t remember when it was (I listen mostly on podcasts) but someone had called in to ask a question about “a couple, few and several.” The caller said his family translated it this way. Couple was 2, a few was 5 because it sounded like the word five and several was 7 because it sounded like seven. I could not believe that Martha and Grant didn’t disagree with him.

I have polled a several people and we have all agreed upon the following: Couple = 2； Few = 3 or 4, but usually 3；and Several = 5 to 8。

另外一位老兄的回答则似乎更妙：

Just had a fun and lively discussion on this subject. Co-worker insisted that a “few” meant exactly three. No more, no less. “Several” was more than a few, and while it was not “many,” there’s no exact number. We joked that she must have learned to count：“One, two, few, four, several, many, many, many.”

其实在英语中，关于数字叙述比较传统的定义，应该是这样的（Back in 1948, Fibber McGee gave the definitive conversion chart for this set of units, in a conversation with the little girl next door）：

Teeny: Mister, what’s a scad? Willie Toops says his uncle has scads of money and I can’t argue with him because I don’t know how much a scad is.

Fibber: You know what an oodle is, sis?

Teeny: No, but everybody says my dog has oodles of fleas.

Fibber: Exactly. There are several scads in an oodle; plenty of oodles to a gob; lots of gobs to a heap; batches of heaps to a load; and multifarious loads to a galore. Understand?

Teeny: Well, no.

Fibber: Well, let’s put it this way. Suppose you had several oodles of peanuts. Somebody gives you a heap more. How many scads would you have?

Teeny: Loads, I betcha.

Fibber: Loads of scads, or lots of gobs, or a batch of heaps.

除此之外，英语中比较常用的数数的词汇还有bunch，pack，和passel/parcel等。有人曾这样说：

A bunch is a comfortable handful. not a hand crammed full.

A passel is too many to count, unless it is really important. You have a passel of snap beans in those eight rows you planted, but sand on a beach or stars in the sky are too many for a passel. If you have a passel of kids, you don’t count them at suppertime, you just notice if there are any empty chairs。