Re: USAGE: intuitions (Re: ontology of glottalized segments?)
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, August 12, 2004, 23:09 |
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On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 05:41:36PM -0500, Mark P. Line wrote:
> Trebor Jung said:
> > And wrote: "Emphatic, my intuitions tell me."
> >
> > "Intuitions"? Isn't that a mass noun? I've never heard or read it used as
> > a count noun. Or was that just a typo?
>
>
> "I had an intuition about turnips yesterday. I had another intuition about
> cumquats the day before. Today I've decided that both of those intuitions
> were incorrect."
>
> I don't find anything unusual in that kind of usage. Not that I ever have
> intuitions about cumquats. (Turnips, now, are a different matter.)
Right. The word "intuition" can refer to the general ability, in which case it
is a mass noun, or it can refer to a particular intuitive feeling, in
which case it's pluralizable.
I have also never had intuitions about "cumquat"s, but I've also never seen
that word spelled that way, either. It's always been "kumquat" IME.
-Marcos
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