A thread for all the weird and wonderful phrasings we sometimes see!
1) "countless anguish". (Googling that phrase will immediately produce hits for the recent news story in which it appeared).
Dodgy! :0 ;)
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fluffyhamster
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fluffyhamster
- Posts: 3031
- Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:57 pm
- Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
Heh, it wasn't used in the context of a grammar discussion Heath, but I know what you mean: a thought something like yours passed through my mind when I first read the phrase - "'Anguish' is uncountable, but 'countless' somewhat ironically produces an incorrect meaning when used before such a noun."
To be fair however to the person who produced the phrase, it was still only semi-prepared speech (literally reported) and not writing, though considering that it was a Crown Court judge who said it in passing sentence, it's still a little bit surprising. I guess he meant and would've preferred to say 'untold anguish' (or simply 'a lot of anguish', eh!) or something like that.
To be fair however to the person who produced the phrase, it was still only semi-prepared speech (literally reported) and not writing, though considering that it was a Crown Court judge who said it in passing sentence, it's still a little bit surprising. I guess he meant and would've preferred to say 'untold anguish' (or simply 'a lot of anguish', eh!) or something like that.