ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

Dusty Bottoms: What does that mean, in-famous?

Ned Nederlander: Oh, Dusty. In-famous is when you're MORE than famous. This man El Guapo, he's not just famous, he's IN-famous.

Lucky Day: 100,000 pesos to perform with this El Guapo, who's probably the biggest actor to come out of Mexico!

Dusty Bottoms: Wow, in-famous? In-famous?

Main Entry: in-
1 : in : within : into : toward : on
2 : 1en-

Main Entry: en-
1 : put into or onto : cover with : go into or onto -- in verbs formed from nouns

Neu! Britney Spears, Smoosh and Edith Piaf.

Neu!, Britney Spears, Smoosh and Edith Piaf.

also to avoid confusion with nu britney spears.

(also, at first i thought neu! britney might be kind of awesome but then i realized it really would not)

This is my first foray onto this thread, so be kind.

I keep getting sentences like this at work:

Although much of the NOC's plans are devoted to oil, ...

And the count/non-count usage of much/many is troubling me. Obviously it's grammatically wrong, because the NOC's plans are plural, so we shouldn't use much. However,it would be misleading to use many, because they don't have a bunch of different plans, some of which are devoted to oil. Something like

Although much of the content of the NOC's plans is devoted to oil, ...

would be correct, it sounds terrible. Any ideas? Or just let it slide?

ps Pity me having to sub reports about the Libyan oil industry. Sigh.

I must edit my own posts on this thread of all threads!

Or avoid the issue by using "a lot"

Lets substitute 'cakes'. (These are stupid artificial examples. Can't think of anything better)

Much of the cake was eaten. YES. Many of the cakes were eaten. YES.

Much of the cakes were eaten? NO. (And a lot can stand in for either, but the meaning changes depending on whether it's a plural or not)

You see my problem?

You don't use a full stop after most abbreviations (in our house style anyway) because people aren't cretins. I know Mr is an abbreviation. No. gets one because you don't have to be a cretin to get it confused with no, the opposite of yes. Nos doesn't get one because nos is obviously the abbreviation for numbers and not something else.

Sense trumps consistency.

Not really...

Berlin and Hamburg were bombed during the war. Much of these two cities was destroyed.

That's acceptable isn't it? In which case "much of NOC's plans" is also acceptable (and semantically different from "many of NOC's plans")

That is OK. But you've used a singular verb. In my case that would mean changing it to

Although much of the NOC's plans is devoted to oil, ...

which is horrible. I lack the wit to explain why your example works, though. Anyone else?

A number of people were gathered

Thanks.

(I am interested in the underlying grammar of this, though, if anyone else is still awake.)

I suppose 'a number' is acting as a collective noun there, though.

I think much/many is different.

Much of these two cities was destroyed.

There's an implied noun after much, IMO, e.g. "Much architecture of these two cities etc." or something similar, because the cities themselves weren't destroyed, but something in them was.

How about "most" instead of "much" in your NOC example, which I read as being a relative majority issue?

meanwhile, here's the copyediting story of the week.

(Ha, although I think we all get snobby on this topic when it comes to whatever we personally do: I am that way people describing themselves as "writers.")

It makes more sense for a longer event with many bands, especially something like All Tomorrow's Parties where it's a specific artist's vision of what's teh hotness in music at the moment.

Why? If you book a night of five bands, surely you then book a weekend of them, too?

So: Messrs Schroeder's horse.