Pedants' Paradise

[jean]

One in ten smartphone users reached for their phone.

But even if you can obscute the distinction between singular and plural subject, you have to commit yourself to what they're reaching for.

I realise now that pulcinella cleverly obsucred this distinction when the issue was first raised by not finishing the sentence:

From today's Times:

One in ten smartphone users reaches for their phone as soon as they wake up.

Really?

(Far better to say: Ten percent of smartphone users reach for.......)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But even if you can obscute the distinction between singular and plural subject, you have to commit yourself to what they're reaching for.
...

For what? Phone or phones?

Ten percent of the one percent of smartphone owners who so reach first thing in the morning have more than one phone - so, in their case(s), "phones".

[jean]

I have heard that there are other things people reach for first thing in the morning.

[Pulcinella]

But even if you can obscute the distinction between singular and plural subject, you have to commit yourself to what they're reaching for.

I realise now that pulcinella cleverly obsucred this distinction when the issue was first raised by not finishing the sentence:

Not sure if I intentionally obscuted or obsucred, but I might have obfuscated, and even winked with both eyes, were that possible.


Good point though.

I would probably write

Ten percent of smartphone users reach for their phone

on the (mistaken) assumption that each (yes, that nice word) of them has only one phone by their bedside.
But if they are that obsessed they may well have several phones by their (multiple) bedsides!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I have heard that there are other things people reach for first thing in the morning.

Especially when CB-H is presenting Breakfast.

[ahinton]

Especially when CB-H is presenting Breakfast.

But surely that's not so much "reach for" as "reach" tout court?

[Lat-Literal]

I accept it is established but "here is some Tchaikovsky" etc.

It always makes me think of sugar - "would you like some sugar?"

Couldn't it be "here is Tchaikovsky"?

[vinteuil]

I accept it is established but "here is some Tchaikovsky" etc.

It always makes me think of sugar - "would you like some sugar?"

Couldn't it be "here is Tchaikovsky"?

... this may be edifying :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSifxC_L9F0

[Lat-Literal]

... this may be edifying :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSifxC_L9F0

[ahinton]

I accept it is established but "here is some Tchaikovsky" etc.

It always makes me think of sugar - "would you like some sugar?"

Couldn't it be "here is Tchaikovsky"?

Not in the sense that this might be taken to mean "here is Tchaikovsky himself" (i.e. in person) rather than some of his music, methinks...

[gurnemanz]

Not strictly relevant but re "some", I was teaching English as a foreign language years ago and can remember once taking on the difference between "some" (stressed) and "s'm" (unstressed):

I like some Tchaikovsky. (ie not all of it)
I'd like s'm Tchaikovsky (ie any unspecified piece)

[Serial_Apologist]

I accept it is established but "here is some Tchaikovsky" etc.

It always makes me think of sugar - "would you like some sugar?"

Couldn't it be "here is Tchaikovsky"?

If you had said Rachmaninov, I would have agreed with you.

[french frank]

Not strictly relevant but re "some", I was teaching English as a foreign language years ago and can remember once taking on the difference between "some" (stressed) and "s'm" (unstressed):

I like some Tchaikovsky. (ie not all of it)
I'd like s'm Tchaikovsky (ie any unspecified piece)

Very nuanced language, English!

[vinteuil]

If you had said Rachmaninov, I would have agreed with you.

.



... no Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov here, thank you very much. O, all right, one or two things...

[Padraig]

Very nuanced language, English!

It is (?)