Re: chotto

chance wrote:
"Sean" <sean@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:O1_fi.11201$tB5.2228@xxxxxxxxxxx
chance wrote:
"Sean" <sean@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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chance wrote:
"Sean" <sean@xxxxxxxx> wrote
chance wrote:
'to say little: to make no reply, to be silent'

What do you say about that? It is from OED.

Defining what word?

If one were to say, "He said little" with the intended meaning "He
said
nothing," then one would using understatement, a rhetorical device.
The
listener would have to gather the intended meaning from the speakers
ironic tone, sardonically raised eyebrow, or other clues.

Several NSoE have told you that "few" and "no/none" do not mean the
same
thing. If you adamantly refuse to believe them, then there is little
to
say.

Not that I say 'few' and 'none' are all one 'globally, but 'locally'.

If 'He said little' is to be taken as 'He said nothing, the hearer
should
gather
the intended sense from the speaker's 'body language', you say.
But what if it was in 'plain text? You should gather the meaning from
its
context.

Is it Ok if I take the 'there is little to say' as 'there is nothing
to
say'?

"Nothing' is a spontaneous concomitant sense stemming from the
'little'
of the 'there is ;ittle to say'. If you insist that the 'little' is
'some',
it is a phantom of the 'little' , where 'some' is
originally and intrinsically embedded as such in the word, 'little'.

'few, or perhaps none', 'a few, or perhaps many' --OED

few
not many; hardly any--All Words.Com

It's worth hardly anything - practically nothing!--BBC

These days few beleive the earth is flat. - probably none--Cambridge

Dictionaries all say 'few' can be used as negatives.

So, was it too much for me to have said, 'few' and 'none'
are all one, albeit I should have added a provision, 'locally'?

Otto Jespersen says: It is always important for any hearer or reader
as soon and as precisely as possible to know whether a statement
is meant as positive or negative.

As to the question of whether 'few palliatives' means 'no
palliatives',
there is no question that it is 'no palliatives', judging
from the extreme and complete destructiveness of a nuclear blast.

If anything, 'few' might be substituted by 'virtually no'
as an understatment instead of simply 'none whatsoever'.

Do you remember the motto by McDonald's, 'Where is beef?'
A concomitance is 'There is none'. Few believe that. There is a lot of
beef
in the product of its competition. But it passes.

In a nutshell, how about taking 'few' as 'virtually none' in a local
sense?
CK
Anything can be virtually anything given the right context.

You are just making a long, complicated thing out of what can and has
been be expressed briefly concerning understatement as a rhetorical
device.

Am I seeing a sea of change in your view of few vs none
or was I mistaken from the beginning and all along
through this thread to believe you are not so liberal
as to accept the possibility that 'few' can be construed as 'none' ,
depending on the context given. I thought you are a doctrinaire
as regards the question of few vs none, judging from your statement,
'...there is nothing to say', for one. You as well as Paul Blay are
the quintessential liberal. God bless you two.


Bless you too, my son.

What is 'my son'? You are botching up the whole discussion?
What is it? Explain, my son.


I am very unlikely to do so.
.

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