Soooo. Along the line, some people clearly used (and I think described) this type of compound word as a determiner (sometimes, anyway).
Sometimes a handful is a determiner. Sometimes it’s a noun (or a stand-in or substitute for one).
That was the idea I had in mind. I just did a bad job of expressing it. Is anybody going to maintain this is not correct?
English is a very slippery language, something which I both enjoy and deprecate (usually by turns, rather than all “to wunst”). Arguments?
I will. The word “handful” is always a noun. Sometimes it’s used to express the amount of another noun (and there I think the word you want is quantifier, not determiner), but grammatically, it’s still a noun even then.
Umm, I don’t think anyone in this thread ever suggested that “handful” could ever be a determiner.
We spent a lot of term arguing about adjectives and determiners, but that was all essentially a hijack, and had nothing to do with the classification of “handful”
As far as I can tell, “handful” is always a noun. And though etymologically it appears to be derived from combination of the noun “hand” with the adjective “full”, The Oxford English Dictionary claims that it was already a compound all the way back in the days of Old English.
If it could be a determiner, we would expect this sentence to be good:
-He gave me handful red apples.
Yes, exactly. Parts of speech are syntactic categories, not semantic ones. I think the intuition of the OP was that semantically, “handful” does in a loose sense modify the meaning of a noun or noun phrase. Since there is a vague misconception that adjectives are simply “describing words”, I can see how this confusion gets started.
And it’s no wonder that people think that parts of speech are semantic categories when kids are taught in schools that a noun is a “person, place, or thing”.
I don’t care if they do. A dictionary is a documentation of the evolution of language. I don’t agree with the way “handful” has evolved. I think its use and meaning have changed the way the use and meaning of millions of words have changed: by people using them improperly and the masses mimicking the mistake. So it’s in the dictionary. Big whoop.
If someone means “several,” then they should say “several.” A “handful” of elephants sounds ridiculous to me.
I suggested (actually, I explicitly stated) that I’d put it in the category of classifier (categorical) nouns.
Here are a few other nouns of that group:
piece (as in piece of paper)
cup (as in cup of rice)
herd (as in herd of cattle)
That’s because, to you (and to me, also), it’s not the correct classifier for that. Try saying “herd of elephants” and tell me how it sounds to you.
Here’s a similar example: I just came back from the mother of all bachelor parties.
The purpose of the phrase “mother of all” is to describe the bachelor party, but “mother” is still a noun.
This reminds me – yesterday I heard a British person on the radio use the term “drugs overdose.” It sounded very odd to me. I would have said “drug overdose.”
Interesting. I couldn’t explain the principle at work, but the biggest grammatical difference I’ve noticed between British and American English is the use of plurals - phrases like "The parliament are . . . " sound very odd to me but seem to be typical of British English. Of course, you’re Indian, correct? So I’d expect you have some familiarity with more British-influenced English.
God didn’t give Moses tablets with usage rules on them. You can maintain that there’s some “pure” form of the language that no one but you uses correctly, but it’s not a rational or justifiable claim. I come to this with the perspective of a student of linguistics, which means I’m used to considering language from an objective, scientific perspective - it’s easy to see the fact that the use of symbols to communicate is essentially an arbitrary system. So if the general consensus is that “handful” can be used to mean “approximately five”, it’s a bizarre claim to say that it’s wrong. What’s right and wrong is defined by how people use language. Claiming that “handful of elephants” is wrong is a particularly absurd thing to get uptight about, because it’s a very ordinary usage, and it’s common in most or all registers of speech. It’s you against the world here if you don’t like it.
I’m not sure that something like “drugs overdose” (or, now that I think of it, “works outing”) fits into the same rubric as “the government are … .”
Anyway, is it a characteristic of British English that everyone already knows about? Or was that use idiosyncratic of that person’s speech?
I’m actually an American of Indian origin with, yes, some degree of familiarity with British English (through literature, pop culture, and the media), but I somehow missed “drugs overdose.”
Are you prepared to write a catchy tune to back up your point?
I’m confused - I thought I’d posted a comment about the drugs overdose but it doesn’t seem to be here :rolleyes:
If someone asked me what the difference was I’d say with a “drug overdose” we know which particular drug was responsible, with a “drugs overdose” I’d imagine a combination, or at least that we weren’t sure if a single drug was responsible.
eg He died from a durgs and alcohol overdose.
She took a drug overdose.
Or it could just be that person’s way of speaking. As for “works outing” that’s easy it is an outing for the workers of the Steel Works.
I haven’t heard of the difference in use of plural verb forms with ‘group nouns’ as being a US Eng. v Brit Eng. thing before. i’ve alsayw rationalized it as a question of perception.
“The team is playing well” - referring to the team as a single block.
“The Team are playing well” - referring to the individual members who make up the team.
Right. They make that distinction in the UK. But in the US (and in Canada I think), words like “team” and “government” are always singular.
You think “handful” developed the way it did through misuse? That seems a rather bizarre claim to me. It’s not a word like “infer/imply” or “borrow/lend” which has legitimate possibility for confusion. Everybody knows the literal meaning of handful. The definition is in the word itself. People just used “handful” figuratively, denoting any small quantity. God knows how long they’ve been doing it, but I suspect for centuries.
Or are we supposed to be rigid literalists in our use of English?
Exactly. I understand the semantics underlying the British usage - they make a distinction that we don’t make. But "The government are . . . " just sounds bizarre to native speakers of American English. However I might be imagining the government, the word is always singular in American English.
Spend enough time around British speakers, and you’ll find yourself using the same construction soon enough. It’s actually not at all weird once you get used to it.
The same can be said of kidney pie, I suppose.
No need to be snotty, or to bring Moses and God into it. I didn’t say that I thought it was “wrong” or that language was “pure” and shouldn’t evolve. Nor did I say that I think I’m the only one using it properly, as I personally know at least 15 people who use it as I do. It’s not as though I’m the originator of this thought, either, though you seem to have taken it rather personally.
I said that I don’t agree with the way “handful” is being used. To me (and others), it sounds bizarre to say “a handful of passengers.” I’m not declaring war on the world. I just hate to hear it used that way, and wish people would stop. Do I think that will happen? Of course not.
BTW, congratulations on your study of linguistics and your rare ability to see language from an objective perspective. That’s defnitely reflected in your post.
Not in those words, but when you say the meaning has changed because “people [have been] using [it] improperly and the masses [have been] mimicking the mistake,” a value judgment is strongly implied.
Just sayin’.