{"id":6080,"date":"2016-11-02T05:43:10","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T05:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/11\/02\/english-is-strange-quite-a-few\/"},"modified":"2016-11-02T05:43:10","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T05:43:10","slug":"english-is-strange-quite-a-few","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/11\/02\/english-is-strange-quite-a-few\/","title":{"rendered":"English is Strange: &#8216;Quite a Few&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino;\">If I ask how many people showed up at a party, an answer might be &#39;a few.&#39; Another answer could be, &#39;quite a few.&#39; The first phrase means <em>a small number<\/em>, while the latter means <em>a comparatively large number<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino;\">It follows that the meaning of &#39;quite a few&#39; is not built up from the meanings of &#39;quite&#39; and &#39;a few.&#39; &#0160;This is so whether &#39;quite&#39; is taken to mean <em>entirely<\/em> or <em>very<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino;\">Equivalently, the meanings of &#39;a few&#39; and &#39;quite a few&#39; have no common meaning element. &#39;Quite a few&#39; functions as a semantic unit. Its meaning cannot be arrived at by piecing together the meanings of &#39;quite&#39; and &#39;a few.&#39; It must be learned as the unit it is: &#39;quite-a-few.&#39; <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino;\">I rejoice in being a native speaker of this irregular and illogical language. Irregular and illogical as she is, she is my thought&#39;s <em>alma mater<\/em>, and I love her dearly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino;\">But my love is not jealous. &#0160;I do not begrudge the foreigner who attempts to learn my language and share in her charms and foibles.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If I ask how many people showed up at a party, an answer might be &#39;a few.&#39; Another answer could be, &#39;quite a few.&#39; The first phrase means a small number, while the latter means a comparatively large number. It follows that the meaning of &#39;quite a few&#39; is not built up from the meanings &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/11\/02\/english-is-strange-quite-a-few\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;English is Strange: &#8216;Quite a Few&#8217;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}