I have pointed this out before, but it continues to be a problem. Things that can be counted (bridges, marmosets, peanuts, people) are described in one way, and things that occur in a lump sum (sand, money, glue, laundry) are described in a different way.The TimesDaily in Florence, Alabama TimesDaily.com recently reported about how successful the North Alabama Birding Trail http://northalabamabirdingtrail.com is. It opened in September 2005, and the visitor response has exceeded expectations. That is the good news.
The bad news, at least from my GrammarGlitchCentral perspective, is that one of the statements in the article has the word AMOUNT where it should be NUMBER:
We have a tremendous amount of people coming by or contacting our office for information on the birding trail.
Whoops! You can talk about AMOUNTS of sand, money, glue, laundry, or rain. However, when you talk about people (or birds or visitors or trails) or anything else that can be counted individually (grains of sand, dollar bills, nickels, jars of glue, towels and sheets, or raindrops), the correct word is NUMBER. This sentence should read as follows:
We have a tremendous number of people coming by or contacting our office for information on the birding trail.
Happy Trails, everyone!
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2 comments:
I really am glad my cousin, Rachel Parris, sent me the link to your interesting blog. I want to get the updates. You make the rules fun and easy to remember with your clear examples from current media. My grandmother and mother would love your work, too, because they were English teachers, as was I.
Thanks for your important work to save the English language.
Carolyne K. Larson
Thanks, Carolyne. I am so glad that you find the blog fun and informative. Please feel free to offer suggestions for topics or to share grammar glitches you come across. By the way, your cousin Rachel is one of my favorite people. We share a water aerobics class several days a week and discuss all kinds of things.
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