Re: Chinese-style measure words in English?

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 12/30/04 

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:14:53 GMT

John Atkinson wrote:
>
> "Lee Sau Dan" <danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote...
>
> >>>>> "Stewart" == Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> Stewart> But that's before you consider other plural nouns like
> Stewart> "police" and "staff". Of course, those like "trousers"
> Stewart> are different again -
>
> > I'm curious. When would "one trouser" or "one scissor" be useful?
> > How come English make it this way? It looks so ridiculous that you
> > MUST say "a pair of trousers" and "a pair of scissors", which are so
> > clumsy. (Is it why people like to say "pant" now? I guess "pant" is
> > related to French "pantalon"?)
>
> I've never heard of anyone say "pant". It's always "a pair of pants" --
> exactly the same as with trousers.

So you've never been to a custom tailor's! 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net

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