Discussion on the use of "Few"

Languages used in Carnatic Music & Literature
ragam-talam
Posts: 1896
Joined: 28 Sep 2006, 02:15

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by ragam-talam »

mahakavi wrote:"few" means >0 but not far beyond that.
Nope. You are wrong. I have explained in some detail already, you can re-read my earlier posts. Also, VK's post brings out the nuanced meaning quite well.
Let me repeat a question I posed already, but haven't recd a response so far:
Suppose a giant comes to town. And someone says 'few would challenge him to a duel'.
Does this mean at least one person (i.e. non-zero) would challenge the giant?
No!

Few means 'hardly any' and includes none.
See here: A few vs Few
Few, when used without a preceding a, means "very few" or "none at all". On the other hand, a few is used to indicate "not a large number". The difference is subtle, yet there are instances where the two can mean completely opposite things.
And:
Actually, when someone uses the word 'few' without a preceding 'a', they actually mean 'no'. It's a way of putting forward one's opinion. Using the same example, "I have few objections to the proposal" actually means "I have no objections".

ragam-talam
Posts: 1896
Joined: 28 Sep 2006, 02:15

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by ragam-talam »

This quiz page is helpful to understand the distinctions:
http://www.better-english.com/grammar/few.htm

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

ragam-talam wrote:Nope. You are wrong. I have explained in some detail already, you can re-read my earlier posts. Also, VK's post brings out the nuanced meaning quite well.

WOW! You sound very authoritative and sound like Dr. Samuel Johnson. Should I accept you like Boswell did?

Let me repeat a question I posed already, but haven't recd a response so far:
Suppose a giant comes to town. And someone says 'few would challenge him to a duel'.
Does this mean at least one person (i.e. non-zero) would challenge the giant?
No!
You pose a question. You answer it the way you like and you close the chapter. Should we close this thread then?

Few means 'hardly any' and includes none.
Burn all the dictionaries, I suppose!
Using the same example, "I have few objections to the proposal" actually means "I have no objections".
None means "no one, not one" If few means "none" according to you then you should say "few objection" to be grammatically correct. The moment you say "few objections" it means one or more objections
Hope it is clear to you now :grin:

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

Let me quote you the meaning for the entry "few"(courtesy: Webster)
few: adj. 1. not many but more than one: few artists live luxuriously
2. noun. a small number or amount: send me a few
idiom: few and far between. not plentiful
quite a few. a farily large number, many.
Pl don't tell me Webster is wrong.
QED and I rest my case :grin:

cmlover
Posts: 11498
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by cmlover »

Folks
This is the language section and not the Lounge..
Hence discussions on grammatical points are quite welcome (except when it gets out of hand :D
We may have a debate on King's English vs American English since Sub has started quoting from Webster!
Perhaps in other parts of the English speaking world the words have different meanings. But we Indians were taught only King's English..

ragam-talam
Posts: 1896
Joined: 28 Sep 2006, 02:15

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by ragam-talam »

mahakavi wrote:None means "no one, not one" If few means "none" according to you then you should say "few objection" to be grammatically correct. The moment you say "few objections" it means one or more objections
'None' can be used with plural verb.
e.g. "I left three pies on the table and now there are none."
Based on this, are you saying that none should also mean greater than zero? (rather, greater than one?)

Let me repeat the question:
Suppose a giant comes to town. And someone says 'few would challenge him to a duel'.
Does this mean at least one person (i.e. non-zero) would challenge the giant?

I will let you answer it this time!
(I am going to be away for the next 4 days, so won't be able to respond for a while.)

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

ragam-talam wrote:'None' can be used with plural verb.
e.g. "I left three pies on the table and now there are none."
Correction: "....now there is none". none means "no one or not one". A typical sentence using none (according to Webster) is None of the members is going. Traditionally "none" was treated as a singular pronoun. When by "none" we mean "not one" or "not any" it is to be followed by a singular verb. Example: Of all my court cases none has been stranger than yours.
Having said that, let me concede that the pronoun none is also permitted to be followed by a plural verb as in: there were two coats on the rack and now there are none.

Based on this, are you saying that none should also mean greater than zero? (rather, greater than one?)
Not based on what you said. Based on what I said my answer remains the same. Few means 1 or more. Refer to my Webster entry that I quoted. For the meaning of "none" see my comment above.

Let me repeat the question:
Suppose a giant comes to town. And someone says 'few would challenge him to a duel'.
Does this mean at least one person (i.e. non-zero) would challenge the giant?
YES! but your "at least" does not make sense. You said "few would"--so one or more might challenge the giant. You seem bent on framing a sentence to entice me to say "yes or no" unconditionally. Still I maintain what I said before. "Few" means (definitely >0) more than one, but not many.
(I am going to be away for the next 4 days, so won't be able to respond for a while.)
While you are away find a Merriam-Webster dictionary and look up the entry under "few"
I can wait till the earth collapses!
Last edited by mahakavi on 26 Jun 2010, 16:14, edited 3 times in total.

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by arasi »

ragam_talam,
First of all, apologies. Lounge ena ninaittEn, idu Languages section ena aRiyAmal! Let me not spoil the 'kAram and sAram of a robust (but not rowdy) discussion! As for Sahitya section, corrections are part of it, sometimes asked for too. You don't have to be a sAhitya kartA to say this ;) For instance, Lakshman often says: corrections welcome.

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

Finallly, to cap it all, Suji Ram (from Seattle?) used the expression "few gimmicks". I will understand it as "some". It is American English. So that is settled. As for the English English, Nick has the final word. It appears OED does not give the meaning of "none" for "few" (cmlover's post).
Despite these if you insist that "few" means "none" just because certain sentences you write appeal to you to give the meaning of none, it must be restricted to certain quarters (definitely NIMBY---not in my back yard)

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

OK, one other quote from Webster.

Main Entry: few
Function: adjective
Date: before 12th century
1 : consisting of or amounting to only a small number <one of our few pleasures>
2 : at least some but indeterminately small in number —used with a <caught a few fish>

Note the first entry does not require "a" but still means small number (which is greater than zero).
We don't say "one of our a few pleasures" (to mean some).
The second entry indicates "few" and "a few" are used interchangeably.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

"few" can be an adjective, a noun ("a few", "the few") and a pronoun ("of the 8, few are doctors").

Now, this debate is not about the noun and pronoun but about the adjective.

I also see that the strict dictionary meaning of 'few" does not include "zero"

But "none/zero" is implicitly included as a possibility in very narrow set of circumstances. Those circumstances are:

---- It is not a straight declarative statement of a known fact ( "few children are still in the room", here few does not include zero ),

---- it is not a known fact that has happened in the past ("few surviors swam to the other side of the river" does not include zero).

---- But when there is a probability implied in a statement, then 'none/zero' is included as a possibility.

For example, "few artists are as creative as X". Obviously, this does not mean 'No artist is as creative as X'. On the other hand, you do not need to know of one or more artists who are as creative as X.

There is a probability implied, there is a bit of uncertainty... Whoever stated the above does not necessarily need to know of an artist who is as creative as X.

So in these circumstances, when you can not boldly assert 'No artist is as creative as X', or have specific information to say 'only a few artists are as creative as X', you say 'few artists are as creative as X'. In that probabilistic sense, zero is included as a possibility.

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by Nick H »

I know that RV won't mind me blaming him!

Relativity, I have said, is there. I have also said that, if you want to include the possibility of zero, the usual usage is "few if any". The language specifically allows for it, and you do not have to twist the definition of "few" to make it include zero. It doesn't.

I suspect we may have reached the point on this where further discussion is not going to help anybody!

cmlover
Posts: 11498
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by cmlover »

Vk's probabilistic explanation is quite helpful.
I can see the similarity of the sanskrit term 'kashcit' (an indefinite pronoun) meaning probably some one...

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

>>So in these circumstances, when you can not boldly assert 'No artist is as creative as X', or have specific information to say 'only a few artists are as creative as X', you say 'few artists are as creative as X'. In that probabilistic sense, zero is included as a possibility.<<

Very remote possibility! Only as a default, which happens rarely, if at all. :grin:

sureshvv
Posts: 5523
Joined: 05 Jul 2007, 18:17

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by sureshvv »

FWIW, I am with Nick on this (few > 0), but I remember this being actually taught the way r-t defines it (0 <- few) over my Pre University days by a dubious English teacher :-)

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

There were always dubious English teachers (besides some very good ones) in India who show off by asserting something which may or may not be true. "few" and "a few", "little" and "a little" were used as typical examples of contrasting usage.

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

What better thing to do on a Saturday afternoon than browsing "The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations" (Third Edition, Oxford University Press) while watching world cup soccer?
Here is what I found on our beloved word "few". In the following quotations "few" appears per se and not with qualifiers like "a" "quite a" "very" etc.
1, It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear ---Francis Bacon (1561-1626) (note that many is contrasted against few)
2. God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.---Bible (Ecclesiastes 5.2). Here the Bible does not tell you to use "no words"
3. For many are called, but few are chosen.--Bible (St. Matthew 22:14)

4. "..... The languid strings do scarcely move! The sound is forc'd, the notes are few!". William Blake (1757-1827) in "To the Muses". "notes are few" says it all.
5, Man that is born of a woman is small potatoes and few in the hill.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) in The Head of the District.
6. Men of few words are the best of men.
Shakespeare (1564-1616) in Henry V.
7. ".....We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother....."
Shakespeare Henry IV Part 1
8. "....Ye are many----they are few"
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1832)
Collection of poems XXXVIII and XCI

Enough?

cmlover
Posts: 11498
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by cmlover »

That 'few' is just too many :D

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

To sum up, the following order is valid.
0 < few < very few < a few < quite a few < lot < infinite
Zero is neutral (neither positive nor negative)
All the others are positive numbers or quantity.

srkris
Site Admin
Posts: 3497
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 03:34

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by srkris »

Few would agree that 'a few' means the same as 'few'. Phew!

cmlover
Posts: 11498
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by cmlover »

Is the comparative declension of few -- few, fewer, fewest ?
I have never seen fewest ever being used in practice. Am I right?
Of course the existence of the word 'fewer' does indicate that few is non zero ??

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

cmlover wrote:Is the comparative declension of few -- few, fewer, fewest ?
Yes
I have never seen fewest ever being used in practice. Am I right?
It is not commonly used. But one can say "the people who attended X's lecture are the fewest in recent history of the lecture series"
Of course the existence of the word 'fewer' does indicate that few is non zero ??
By all means

So the nail on zero inside the coffin is firmly in place, never to be seen outside in the company of "few". :)

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Nick H wrote: I have also said that, if you want to include the possibility of zero, the usual usage is "few if any". The language specifically allows for it, and you do not have to twist the definition of "few" to make it include zero. It doesn't.
You and mahakavi seem to be much more sure about this, so let me state this just for completeness of discussion.
I am not twisting anything, I am just reporting how I have known it to be used, in the narrow set of real world circumstances I have outlined.

Remember how the three degrees of adjectives, "positive", "comparative" and "superlative" are related to each other and how a statement can be restated in any of forms without changing the meaning?

For example: "X is the most creative student in the class", and "There is no one in the class who is as creative as X is" are equivalent.

Now, how do you transform "X is arguably the most creative student in the class" or "X is probably the most creative student in the class"

"There is no one who is as creative as X" is not correct.

The following two are acceptable.

"a few students, if any, are as creative as X"
"few students are as creative as X"

If you agree that the superlative form allows for the possibility of X to be in the sole possession of first rank in the creativity scale, you should agree that the second form also allows for the possibility of X to be in the sole possession of that.

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by arasi »

VK,
Then, there is 'hardly any'!
By the way, 8) is you! Many many more years of a 8) -er life, birthday boy!

cmlover
Posts: 11498
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by cmlover »

VK
In the first example the definite article 'the' establishes the uniqueness of the person. On the otherhand if it was the indefinite article 'a' then the uniqueness will be lost.
In the second example ties are allowed since there is no article preceding. If however it was 'the X' then the uniqueness will be restored and your first equivalence may be lost but the second may hold good (by including '0' as a possibility).

Thx arasi for reminding us! Many happy returns VK...

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by Nick H »

vk... the comparative of few is fewer; the superlative is fewest. Wasn't that in my dictionary definition? None of them include zero.

You would not say "a few students, if any, are as creative as X" because it is clumsy, if not bad English. Actually, I doubt that you would say it: your English is far too good.
I am just reporting how I have known it to be used, in the narrow set of real world circumstances I have outlined.
It is a common word, you must be reporting the narrow set of real-world circumstances in which you may have heard it misused. In over fifty years of learning and speaking English, in daily reading, for the last twenty years or so, of novelists ranging from Nobel prize winners to entertaining rubbish, as well as non-fiction and technical literature, I have never come across this "few" including none.

You have refuted the standard authority on this language (the Oxford Dictionary). You have absolutely refused to take the word of an English speaker. You are, no doubt, determined to be wrong!

Whilst it may lead to misunderstanding it, it is but one word, a small thing --- I don't know where Arasi gets her information, but let me join her in wishing you a very happy birthday and a year full of good music :)

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

you must be reporting the narrow set of real-world circumstances in which you may have heard it misused.
I grant you that.

For example, when I read "Nuns Go Places Where Few Dare to Go" in http://church-ladies.blogspot.com/2010/ ... to-go.html

I understand it as an implicit expression of doubt that any one will go where the nuns go spiritually. That may be a misuse on their part or misunderstanding on my part.

(Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. Nick, it is from a different thread ).

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by Nick H »

Well, the nuns go there, so it doesn't matter if the few includes others or not: it is not no-one.

This puts me in mind of arguing with an ex-boss, who, despite having spoken the language for a few more years than I, could not understand that it is not possible for something to be more or less unique. Unique means one only and has no comparative or superlative. The error messages from some database software (eg "not unique enough") don't help. The thing about unique being unique, is something that some English people just can't grasp.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

>Well, the nuns go there, so it doesn't matter if the few includes others or not: it is not no-one.

I do not understand this. When you say "if the few includes others or not", isn't that what the main point is, if the 'count of others includes zero or not'. If all you are saying is since at least one nun goes there, it is not zero. Fine, that is not a problem for me at all. Meaning, in the above usage, if the reference to 'few' includes the nuns, then you are absolutely right. That is not how I understood it. May be that is where the issue is, a misunderstanding on my part on that key point.

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by Nick H »

If there was some feature to google that analysed style, form and content, it might tell us that this nun title is formed from some other saying. Or I might be thinking of "where angels fear to tread". So might the writer have been. There is quite a lot wrong in that piece (which taught me the word sodality), but, as I posted on another thread here today, the author wasn't taking an exam.

My understanding of what the writer wishes to convey is that nuns routinely do things and go to places and situations that would be unusual for others, but this still places them squarely among the few, so yes, the few includes the nuns. Enamoured of nuns as the author clearly is, I don't think [s]he is suggesting that nuns were alone in any of the great works ascribed to them, except perhaps the battle-field nursing, that might not have included other civilian women.

We can conclude, though, thanks to your example, that few can include nun :)

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

When you mean "none" (no one, not one), "few" will not fit.
When you mean "few", "none" has no place there, except "nun" :grin:
Last edited by mahakavi on 28 Jun 2010, 01:37, edited 1 time in total.

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by Nick H »

but nun has :)

Otherwise, yes. Succinct and correct.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

;)

>When you mean "none" (no one, not one), "few" will not fit.

Correct. I am not saying that either.

The narrow set of circumstances I am referring to has to satisfy a few conditions:

1) The cardinality is not known for certain.
2) None would be too assertive and deterministic, one needs a softer form of assertion.
3) It is not a statement of fact but a fuzzy characterization.

Anyway, the nun example is just that and I instinctively understood that it is referring to the others ( and not the nuns ) and it satisfies the above three conditions to include the possibility ( mind you, just the possibility ) of zero others.

( Just as an aside, If I am developing a data model for the above sentence, until I get to ask a clarifying question, I would model the cardinality as 0 to M and not 1 to M . The latter can get us into trouble in the future. )

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by Nick H »

I'd have to look up the word "cardinality", but I sure I can reply 1 to m.

Then we'll have to agree to differ. Although it may appear otherwise, there is a limit to how many times I can repeat myself!

mahakavi has caught me out, this evening, with two errors --- but on this matter, I am absolutely, 100%, after sleeping on it, after wondering if I haven't made one of my crazy confusions, after discounting any possible dyslexia, certain.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Alright Nick, sounds good. Until we find any other evidence or data point, we will stop here.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Let me take this into a bit of a geeky direction... just for fun... This may not shed anything to the current issue at hand...

Here is how one will model the sentence, "Nuns Go Places Where Few Dare to Go", epistemologically speaking ( knowledge representation, data modeling etc. )...
I am interpreting that the 'few' refers to lay persons and not nuns.

Ready?... don't tell me you were not warned... geek alert had been issued. :)

We have two nouns: Person and Place ( spiritual place in this context.. )

Relationship under consideration is "Person going to Places"

Nun IS A person
Lay person IS A person

The relationship between Person and Place is as follows: A specific person can go to 0 or more places and a specific place is visted by 0 or more persons.
So the cardinality of the relationship is usually written as: Person to Place is 1 to 0..M and Place to Person is 1 to 0..M

The relationship between Nun and Place is as follows: A specific nun can go to 1 or more places and a specific place is visited by 0 or more Nuns.
So the cardinality of the relationship is: Nun to Place is 1 to 1..M and Place to Nun is 1 to 0..M

The relationship between lay person and place is as follows: A specific lay person can go to 0 or more places and a specific place is visited by 0 or more lay persons.
So the cardinality of the relationship is: Lay person to Place is 1 to 0..M and place to lay person is 1 to 0..M

As you can see, the relationship of places to anyone is always 0..M since a specific place need not be visited by anyone...
There are places even nuns do not visit. That is not our current debate.

But the relationship between Person to Places is where the interest is. It goes like this.

Person to Place is 1 to 0..M
Nun to Place is 1 to 1..M
Lay person to Place is 1 to 0..M

The query that validates the 'zero inclusiveness" will be implemented as follows.

Are there places that are visited by Nuns that are not visited by lay persons? If there is at least one such place, then the
"zero inclusive interpretation of 'few' " is validated, as long as "few" refers to lay persons and does not include nuns.

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

"Nuns Go Places Where Few Dare to Go"
Nuns go places.
Few people dare to go (to the same) places
"places" are the same in both cases above.
Not many dare to go to the same places but few(some) do.
Not everybody does but some dare.
Draw your conclusion from this.
The basic premise does not change whatever the circumstances are.

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

>>Are there places that are visited by Nuns that are not visited by lay persons?<<
This query is ambiguous. It may be that there are places not visited by lay persons (but visited by nuns). But it may be because they (lay persons) don't care to go to such places.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

The ambiguity is resolved because in this model, Place only refers to those places that few lay persons dare to go. It does not include places they do not care to go. Think of that Place class as pre-populated with only such places.

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

Then the answer to your question is an unequivocal "no".
Even if one lay person visits besides the nuns then the definition of "few" is validated as >0.

Imagine this situation. Let us say one person dares to go. He does not end up at the destination. Let us say he gets lost or dies on the way. Only in this hypothetical case your cardinality takes a value >0 but <1. But if the attempt to go is counted as sufficient then the value is = 1.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

>Even if one lay person visits besides the nuns then the definition of "few" is validated as >0.

Of course.

My query to this ( imaginary ) database is the other way.. ( also assume once someone dares to go to a place, they do reach the place, for this discussion )

"Are there places that are visited by Nuns that are not visited by lay persons? If there is at least one such place, then the
"zero inclusive interpretation of 'few' " is validated, as long as "few" refers to lay persons and does not include nuns."

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

>>"Are there places that are visited by Nuns that are not visited by lay persons? If there is at least one such place, then the
"zero inclusive interpretation of 'few' " is validated, as long as "few" refers to lay persons and does not include nuns."<<

The answer to the above question is "no" if the lay persons category includes women.
I don't want to give fodder to your cannon by giving you an exception where the destination would be a nunnery, in which case the word "dare" is the stopper.
If we keep on narrowing such a path, ultimately it may be possible to reach the value of zero, but only asymptotically which is what you are aiming at.

John Keats in his poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" writes as follows:
Bold lover never never canst thou kiss;
Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy kiss
For ever wilt thou love and she be fair

That is what describes the asymptotic behavior. You won't do it but keep on going.

Here equate the kiss with your cardinality value of zero.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Nick, for whatever it is worth, I checked with a few people if the reference to 'few' includes the nuns are not. They all felt it refers to the non-nuns, the same way as I understood it.

mahakavi: Regarding asymptotic or not, I am not sure if I understand what you are saying fully but here is some context. I am not making this up to make it narrower and narrower... just a context so we do not talk about straw-man side issues that inevitably come up.

In this context, let us say the "Places" we are talking about are the battlefields and disease ridden places. Let us also assume that nuns go there routinely and lay persons in general are afraid to go there. These are all given, not subject to debate, for this purpose.

All we are doing by querying the model (database ) is to validate the statement "nuns go places where few dare to go".

First query is to provide a report that shows the number of nuns that have visited such places ( N ) and a report that shows the number of lay persons that have visited such places ( L ). A summary report is all we need, we do not even need per place statistics. As long as N is significantly greater than L, the statement is validated. That is, Nuns do go to places where few dare to go. I think we all agree on that.

The "zero inclusiveness test" is as I wrote earlier. Run a query that shows the list of places that nuns have visited and lay persons have not. If there is at least one such a place, then the zero inclusiveness test for 'few' is validated.

Just as an aside to this aside, since you showed some interest in my cardinality characterization, in knowledge representation and data models, there are constraints. Cardinality is a constraint. If you do not allow for zero lay persons to visit a place a nun has visited, then you will have a problem satisfying the constraint in this insertion scenario: When you want to populate the information for a nun who has just visited a place that no lay person has visited yet. It is one of those insertion anomalies that knowledge representation and data modelers worry about.

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by Nick H »

Unfortunately, your nun example is a piece of clumsy, if not bad, English. We can't define a word in such a context. I'd recommend you to stick with earlier examples such as "few would support...".

My further random thought is...

If we mean none, we say none, but, if we mean one, we say one. Does this mean that "few" is not greater than zero, but greater than one?

Given the possibility of the comparative and superlative, fewer and fewest, in certain circumstances "few" might be said to start at four!

So many academics here... can't someone come up with a professor of English? :)

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

I am a little weary of chasing a straw man argument.
In a previous post I gave several literary examples from poets and the Bible to show how "few" is used to denote a value greater than zero (actually more than 1).
Besides, the prevalence of "fewer" and "fewest" indicates that "few" can NEVER be zero lest the comparative and superlative terms would mean negative numbers. If few means 0 person, then fewer would mean -1, -2, -3 ..... persons. Shall we call them anti-persons? To traverse that sequence from the positive side, one has to disappear (at zero value) and reemerge on the other side as an anti-person.

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

Nick H wrote:So many academics here... can't someone come up with a professor of English? :)
We need an English professor in the company of nuns. :grin:

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by arasi »

As much as we need Keats with all his poetic license :)

Please consider this a remark of an unlettered spectator who tried to listen in but could make neither head nor tail out of it all--which makes me wonder if it's all scientific stuff in the guise (habit) of a nun. Somehow, a nun moving about in her cumbersome habit in hot and humid weather (where some of us live) is disconcerting!
Before one of you says "off with you!", I plead guilty--none of my business, of course. But then, r_t is expected to reappear soon and it will get more intense, perhaps.
I can hear someone murmuring: kollan paTTaRaiyil IKkenna vElai? (What business has a fly in a smithy?). Well, then let me just be a fly on the wall!

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by vasanthakokilam »

mahakavi: You need not get weary.... This is all for fun and not for some earth shattering consequence, so do not get weary. And we actually stopped. The tail of the discussion is on some geeky epistemological stuff. Most people do not think about it at this level since the construction of the sentence is about emphasis on the character of nuns.

Just one last thing... You keep saying "If few means 0 person,".. No one is saying that... All we are talking about is the edge case of "Does 'few' include 0 person?"

May be there is a possibility of a middle ground here. Colloquially it can extend to zero under the specific conditions I have outlined before even if the Dictionary, English teachers and English professors specify otherwise. I would not venture characterizing that colloquial usage as right or wrong. Just to test this informally, I asked a few people around me. All of them said that they would use few even if there is a chance of it being zero. Again, for whatever such informal data collection is worth!! You all can try it with a few people around you :)

cmlover
Posts: 11498
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by cmlover »

VK
I am with you on the interpretation
P(few =0) >0
Thus few has a probabilty distribution on natural numbers including zero. The highest probability density rests on a number depending on the context. It can even be a large number if the universe is much bigger. As Nick pointed out few can be 10000 in the context of a million or billion.

mahakavi
Posts: 1269
Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 22:16

Re: Discussion on the use of "Few"

Post by mahakavi »

>>Well, then let me just be a fly on the wall!<<

There is a danger here. If a swatter is also nearby the fate of the fly is predictable!

Post Reply