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Re: French and German (jara: An introduction)

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Saturday, June 7, 2003, 16:11
Henrik Theiling scripsit:

> But as I said, it is not 'many' of them, just 'some'. Or, well, a > subset of no given quantity. That's why I stumbled when I read > 'many'. 'There are dogs that ...' is what it expressed by 'manch ein > Hund'. > > Or is that what 'many a dog' expressed, too? (I did not know that > construction in English, so I'm helpless here.)
No, "many" has its full semantics in this construction: what's archaic is the use of the sg. rather than the pl. with it. (Not *very* archaic, either.) Googling finds "Many a dog walked only in the yard is panic stricken if the need ever arises to walk on a busy street." which is in every way, except flavor, equivalent to "Many dogs walked ... are ...". -- [W]hen I wrote it I was more than a little John Cowan febrile with foodpoisoning from an antique carrot jcowan@reutershealth.com that I foolishly ate out of an illjudged faith www.ccil.org/~cowan in the benignancy of vegetables. --And Rosta www.reutershealth.com