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deaconB said
Rachel Carson, in Silent Spring (1962), alluded to those extinctions in Chapter 7, when she decried the fact that we've now added a new kind of havoc, with the direct killing by chemical insecticides. In the early 1970s, I read that they'd discovered a small herd of bison in Canada that nobody realized was there. I keep waiting for the passenger pigeon and the dodo to come back to life.
I recall that buffalo (bison) burgers were on the menu at Philmont Scout Ranch when I went there in 1971. Probably, later that year on a trip to Laverne, OK, we stopped at a bison ranch in Miami, OK. I do not actually recall a pure bison, but I do recall seeing a part Hereford bison--probably from a Hereford bull and bison female. Wikipedia implies the lowest bison numbers were in the 1890s.
A neighbor of mine, reacting to the spelling "alot" wrote this: "Two words is not a lot. But a lot is two words."
The initial "is" sounds just fine to my ear, possibly because of the following singular "lot". You might also say "Three people is not a horde" or "Two wives isn't many" and I guess the logic (if any) is that the subject and its adjective form a sort of singular noun.
If he had written "Two words are not a lot" wouldn't the follow-up be "But a lot are two words"?
faresomeness said
A neighbor of mine, reacting to the spelling "alot" wrote this: "Two words is not a lot. But a lot is two words."The initial "is" sounds just fine to my ear, possibly because of the following singular "lot". You might also say "Three people is not a horde" or "Two wives isn't many" and I guess the logic (if any) is that the subject and its adjective form a sort of singular noun.
If he had written "Two words are not a lot" wouldn't the follow-up be "But a lot are two words"?
I guess our ears are different. I would prefer are in all of these examples, not only for the sound but to conform to the rules. The last one, "But a lot are two words," could be the exception because lot would be a singular subject. But the play on words makes a lot a subject made of two words therefore plural. Would you say, "Quite a lot is three words."? Maybe so if it sounds right.
I think that Two words is not a lot in the same way that Two gallons is not a lot. It's not so much the count as it is the volume. A hundred dollars are not much money these days just wouldn't fly.
I would certainly say 'Quite a lot' is three words. I think you're right, Dick, our ears are different, and trying to discern the logic (or the rules) is fun, but I'm not sure it will bring us to one right answer.
Peano said
deaconB said
the last bison having died in Yellowstone ParkWhen a species becomes extinct, that means that no members of the species exist. If the last bison died -- if indeed no other bison roamed the earth -- then by what biological miracle was another bison created?
I think the miracle is known as "revisionism." Bob Heinlein pointed out that corrupt politicians can be counted on to stay bought, for that is their stock in trade, but there's nothing so dangerous as a reform politician, because one will not hesitate to go back on his word "for the good of the people". There seem to be a lot of Chicken Littles who proclaim impending doom based on insufficient evidence, and who are as inconstant as a reform politician.
faresomeness said
AIf he had written “Two words are not a lot” wouldn’t the follow-up be “But a lot are two words”?
No, because the verb needs to match the subject, not the object.
Alot always means "many" (and alot grates on me) but a lot is always singular (as the a indicates). The word grocer comes from the fact that he would buy a lot - typically a gross - at a good price, and resell in smaller lots at a markup.
“Two words are not a lot” wouldn’t the follow-up be “But a lot are two words”?
I would like to explain further my thought about this. The statement,"A lot is/are two words," in context is a word play. The meaning of a lot is irrelevant to that word play. You could say,"As if are two words," because as is one word and if is another word. A is one word and lot is another word. This statement is not talking about the meaning of the words but the fact that there are two of them. Therefore it should be plural, "A lot are two words." in another context, a lot would be a singular subject, as in, "A lot is more than a few." But here we are talking about two words, plural.
I just started thinking of some other examples. "A lot of ducks are crossing the road." "There is a herd of Bison on the hill. A lot of them are coming down here." I believe both of these are properly rendered as plural, so a lot could be either singular or plural depending on context.
I won't argue about the rest of it because I know the rules can be vague and how it sounds means a lot.
Glenn said
You may not have to wait long for the comeback of the passenger pigeon:
Nat Geo
Sci Am
Wash Post
Or the wooly mammoth. http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/11/17/can-long-extinct-woolly-mammoth-be-cloned/
Passenger pigeons are front and center in my mind lately. I'm currently reading “Little Miss Sure Shot: Annie Oakley's World” ( ). Back in the '50s, my parents would stop for a picnic at the Annie Oakley rest stop on US 127; it was about halfway to my cousins' house near Cincinnati, and we all were curious about this child who, as an orphan, supported her widowed mother and siblings by shooting passenger pigeons for sale to Cincinnati merchants.
But the bison owes nothing to cloning. That extinction was just an exaggeration promoted by fools, liars and zealots.
It seems nobody to want to clone dodos, though. I guess they figure there are plenty of those in the “opposition party,” however the speaker aligns himself.
They billed her as "Little Sure Shot" or "Little Miss Sure Shot". You ever tried shooting small birds in flight? By the time the slug gets there, the bird has zigged and zagged, and it ain't where it oughta be.
An orphan lamb, of which I used to raise one or two every year, has no living mother, but the father may exist. Orphanages hardly exist any more, but in the 19th century, children in orphanages often were left there by a father after the mother died. Majority ownership of the Hershey Chocolate companies is held by the trustees of the Milton Hershey School, an orphanage where most residents have two living biological parents.
Random House has, as the first definition, "a child who has lost both parents through death, or, less commonly, one parent."
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