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Dodgy! :0 ;)
Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2010 10:44 pm
by fluffyhamster
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).
-less
Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2010 4:21 am
by Heath
Count-less / non-count.
Did they use the wrong affix?
Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2010 5:01 am
by fluffyhamster
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.
