Am Mittwoch, 9. November 2011 17:22:36 UTC+1 schrieb clifford:
If someone asks, out of the blue, how many lions there are and I say "About 12,000", my answer may be wrong but it is the right sort of answer. If the gotcha questioner says "no, there are four" I can righteously respond "Hey, there are five just in our Zoo". If he goes on to explain "The European (now extinct), the African, the Indian, and the Asiatic", I might exclaim "Oh, you meant *kinds* of lions!". Yet, had he begun the conversation with "There are four lions: the European, the Asiatic, the Indian, and the African", I would have understood him fine and had no complaints. I would equally have no problems with "That lion is the same as the one we saw yesterday" nor, probably, with "Lion (or lions) is (are) quite tasty,
when marinated in monkey-brain sauce and roasted over an open fire", nor "Lions eat gazelles" nor "A/The lion is/Lions are the second largest cat". And so on through countless other examples
A joke I read in the newspaper today:
The teacher asks a student: "Name three animals from Africa."
The student answers: "An elephant and two lions."
mu'o mi'e la selpa'i
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