Re: 'together vs. to gather'

Philippe Caquant wrote:
> Thinking about dust, I came to the conclusion that if
> there is something like "dust gathering" without any
> reference to plural (and it looks like it might), then
> one had to draw an arrow which would be large at its
> beginning and narrow at its end (in that case: not
> several arrows). OK, sounds not bad.
Tell me, would you say "The dust was gathered" or "The dust were
gathered"?  I'd say the first, because it's mass not plural.

But, ultimately I think this is a stupid argument.  Clearly some people,
such as myself, view things like dust as a mass that can come together,
becoming a smaller area, while others, such as yourself, view it as an
aggregation of small particles that come closer together.  Can we not
conclude from this that a language is free to gramaticalize either view?

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