Re: Thinking about Google
Quote:
Originally Posted by майк
[Thought], as a verb, is the past tense of [think]. As a noun it can be inter alia the act of thinking; an opinion or idea; application of mental attention - as in 'he gave the matter some thought. As a noun, it can be singular or plural. So, it is a matter of fact - was it a single thought, or was the process over time, in which case, 'on second thoughts'.
For me, it is usually going to be, 'on second thoughts'.
Sorry, not buying that. Second is an ordinal, not a cardinal number - второй. If we line up 10 apples, there is only one second apple. Similarly there is only one 'second thought'. But in the end, trying to work it out logically doesn't usually help.
It seems to be generally true that many American English variants to British English are either simplifications, or to put it more charitably, things which tend to make the language more logical. Obvious example: closer matching of phonetics with spelling.
I guess/suppose :wink: it's easy to understand the historical reasons for that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by майк
What is it with the Google thing?
Laziness in my case. I agree that those numbers don't really prove anything.