Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[navi]

A-If you go to many doctors, they will tell you this medication is very effective.

Does A mean:
A1-Most doctors say this medication is very effective.
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B-If you eat many of the things you see here, you'll get food poisoning.

Does B mean either:
B1-Most of the things you see here would give you food poisoning.
or:
B2-If you eat a large quantity of the things you see here, you will get food poisoning.
depending on the context?


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C-If you eat many things from among those that you see here you'll get food poisoning.

Does C only mean the same as B2?

Am I on the right track?!

[pugachevV]

Many = a large number.
Therefore A. means If you go to a large number of doctors, they will tell you this medication is effective.
That's what it says.
It does not say that more(the comparative of many) doctors will say it is effective than will say it's not effective.
It does not say most(the superlative of many)doctors say that the medication is effective.

Similarly B. says that if you eat a large number of the things you see here, you will get food poisoning.

This means that a large number of the things you see here will give you food poisoning if you eat them. This does not necessarily mean that you have to eat say, ten of the items referred to. It may mean, for example, that 10 out of 20 different items will give you food poisoning if you eat even one of the ten.

[navi]

Thanks a lot PugachevV,

Is sentence C correct at all?

C-If you eat many things from among those that you see here you'll get food poisoning.

[pugachevV]

If you have a table with twenty different items on it, your sentence C). means that a lot of them will give you food poisoning if you eat them. It means that a lot of them are dangerous to eat. It does not specify which ones, or how many you have to eat to be poisoned.
Incidentally, when I say "food-poisoning" I generally mean that a food item that is normally safe to eat, is contaminated with some kind of bacteria, such as Salmonella, Listeria, E.coli , Campylobacter and so on. Food contaminated like this usually looks perfectly OK to eat.
On the other hand some items that look like food (such as various mushrooms and berries) are inherently poisonous because of their chemical content and will either kill you if you eat many of them, or make you sick if you only eat one or a few.
If I were referring to the latter kind, I would say, "Many of the items are poisonous."