Friday February 11, 2011

In mournful number

Dr LIM CHIN LAM

A look at the word ‘number’ as used and connoted in language and grammar.

THE above title comes from the opening stanza of the poem The Psalm Of Life by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882): “Tell me, not in mournful numbers, / Life is but an empty dream! / For the soul is dead that slumbers, / And things are not what they seem.” No, I’m not about to talk about the lofty language and theme of the poem nor about poetry in general. Rather I’m just homing in on the word “number” to be used as the topic of this article.

The word “number” has several meanings. In the plural, it means “rhythm, verses, music” (Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1974), as used in the aforesaid poem. In other situations, its several meanings include the following: (1) “arithmetical symbols by which things are counted or measured”; (2) “an issue of a periodical or serial publication;” (3) “a single item (song, dance, sketch) of a theatrical programme made up of several similar parts” (modified from The Random House Dictionary Of The English Language, 1972); and (4) a grammatical classification of words that consists typically of singular and plural (Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2004).

Let us look at some noteworthy features of number in language and grammar.

Number in language

Some numbers are interesting. The number 40 is one such. The Old Testament relates that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights to cause the Deluge (in the story of Noah and his ark). Moses spent the first 40 years of his life in the royal court of Egypt. After a failed attempt to aid his enslaved Israelites, he fled to the land of Midia where he spent 40 years in seclusion. Then, on a commission from God who then rained 10 plagues on the Egyptians, Moses delivered his people from Egyptian bondage, and led them to the Promised Land – but only after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness of Sinai.

What’s more, we have the Arabian Nights’ tale of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves, and we have 40 winks to refresh ourselves.

Among the superstitious Chinese, the number 4 (Hokkien si, Cantonese sei) is taboo because it sounds like the word “to die” (when said with the proper intonations). On the other hand, the number 6 (Hokkien lahk, Cantonese lohk) is a lucky number because it sounds like the English word luck. The number 8 (Cantonese paht) is another lucky number because it sounds like Cantonese faht “prosperity”.

The number 7 is another special number. Why are there seven days in a week? Why do people say “the seven seas” when there are actually more than seven? Are there just Seven Wonders of the World?

Another prime number, 13, is supposed to be unlucky; and English even has the Greek-derived term triskaidekaphobia, for “a superstition or fear of the number 13”.

Then there are the hodgepodge of numbers which make up the Imperial Units of measurement. For example, in the measurement of length, 12 inches = 1 foot, 3 feet = 1 yard, 220 yards = 1 furlong, and 8 furlongs = 1 mile. No doubt to the eternal gratitude of British schoolboys and schoolgirls, the French Revolution introduced a much easier, and more logical, system of measurements based on the decimal.

Yet still one may ponder why decimalisation has not gone far enough. For example, why are there 60 seconds in one minute, 60 minutes in one hour, 24 hours in one day, and seven days in one week? Why, in the measurement of angles, are there 60 seconds in one minute, 60 minutes in one degree, and 360 degrees for a circle?

Science and technology has formalised the decimal system of measurements under the Système International d’Unites. Even so, SI units, e.g. metre, hectare, kilogramme, tonne, and litre, find everyday use, having superseded older units like the biblical cubit, the Chinese li and tael, and the Malay depa, cupak, gantang, and relong. The United States, however, is still holding onto ounces, pounds, pints and gallons – but for how long?

The metric system withstanding, some of the words for the old units will likely persist in special terms or expressions which have no plausible equivalents. The following are examples: (1) every inch a king/hero/etc.; (2) to within an inch of one’s life; (3) the last furlong; (4) go the extra mile; (5) mileage; (6) milestone; and (7) one’s pound of flesh.

Then there are certain numbers, as well as special words denoting specific numbers (e.g. dozen, gross, score), which gave rise to useful expressions such as the following: (1) a nine days’ wonder; (2) the whole nine yards; (3) dressed to the nines; (4) on cloud nine; (5) six of one and half a dozen of the other; (6) cheaper by the dozen; (7) baker’s dozen; (8) talk nineteen to the dozen; and (9) four score and seven years ago (the memorable opening words – instead of a prosaic 87 years ago – to match the majesty of the Gettysburg Address by President Abraham Lincoln: “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal ...”)

Number in grammar

Whether the subject of a sentence is singular or plural makes no difference in sentence construction in, say, Malay or Chinese. The same verb form applies (concerning dog/dogs: anjing/anjing-anjing itu menyalak; concerning first-person pronoun singular/plural: saya/kita/kami pergi ke sekolah; concerning third-person pronoun singular/plural: dia/mereka pulang dari sekolah). The situation is different in English. Number in the grammatical sense plays a significant rôle in English grammar (and, for that matter, in other European languages). A singular noun governs a singular verb, and a plural noun a plural verb – but this distinction is obvious for the present tense, indicative mood, thus: the dog barks / the dogs bark. Even so, this rule does not apply to the first-person and the second-person pronouns (I walk / we walk, you [singular] walk / you [plural] walk), where the plural verb is used for both the first-person or the second-person, whether singular or plural.

One must be aware of the grammatical number of a word or phrase so as to make the appropriate subject-and-verb agreement in one’s sentence construction. In addition to the conventions illustrated above, we may note several other pointers, as follows:

(1) The ing-noun as subject. The gerund, formed by adding the inflectional suffix –ing to a base verb, is deemed a singular noun, whether or not it governs an object and whether or not it governs a plural object (swimming gives one a good workout; mowing the lawns in the neighbourhood affords him an additional income).

(2) The to-infinitive as subject. In “to err is human”, the subject is “to err”, a to-infinitive, which is singular – and a to-infinitive remains singular even in an inverted construction. Thus the sentence “There seem to be no limits to the ways the human body can break down” (The Star/StarTwo, Feb 2, p.T12) should be corrected to “there seems to be no limits ...”, where “to be” is the rightful subject, therefore singular – not “there”, which is an introductory adverb.

(3) The use of quantifying phrases. The phrase “one of” is followed by a singular verb, whether it is one out of an assemblage represented by a collective noun (one of the crew is missing), and whether it is one out of many (one of the books is missing). Where the quantifying phrase consists of a seeming mismatch of singular and plural (many a, a few), the word immediately preceding the noun determines the number, thus: many an unruly schoolboy has been caned by the disciplinary teacher; a few boys were absent from the rehearsal).

(4) The collective noun. Such noun refers to a group of individual people or animals (army, audience, committee, family, herd, team, etc.), and which in the singular can take either a singular or a plural verb. It takes a singular verb when the group is considered as a single unit, e.g. the audience was a large one). On the other hand, it takes a plural verb when the group is considered as a collection of individuals, e.g. all the audience were standing and clapping their hands (see Oxford Dictionary Of English Grammar, 1998).

(5) Repeating the definite article. In certain situations, the repetition, or otherwise, of the definite article “the” differentiates between the plural and the singular, thus: the captain and the full-back of the football team were very popular (the repetition of “the” denotes two different individuals, therefore plural). On the other hand, the captain and full-back of the football team was very popular (the omission of “the” before the second item denotes a single individual, therefore singular).

Closing remarks

I should like to close by noting the numbers associated with some significant features of English grammar. There are traditionally eight parts of speech, also called word-classes or syntactic class (noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, conjunction, interjection; other categories are articles and determiners – Oxford Dictionary Of English Grammar, 1998); five cases of nouns and pronouns (nominative/subjective, vocative, accusative/objective, genitive/possessive, dative; a sixth case, the ablative, which occurs in Latin, is not relevant in English, where such meanings are expressed by prepositional phrases – Oxford Dictionary Of English Grammar, 1998); three tenses of verbs (present, past, future), with three aspects associated with each tense (simple/imperfect, continuous/progressive, perfect); two voices (active, passive); three types of clause (main/principal, coordinate/independent, subordinate/dependent); four types of sentences depending on the manner of conveying the message (declarative, exclamative, interrogative, imperative); and four types of sentences depending on the clause structure of the sentence (simple, compound, complex, mixed/compound-complex).

Is my number up now?

Mind Our English

Friday February 11, 2011

In mournful number

Dr LIM CHIN LAM

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