How much clothing did your wife bring?

[kerouac]

Well, it's not easy moving from one country to another with only your suitcase. I was in the reverse situation. I moved to Russia! And I took plenty of clothes. The first time I flew over I had to pay excess baggage. The subsequent times I managed to squeeze just under their allowance. I think the best advice is to make several trips in 12 months. That way, you don't get so homesick. Plus, you can bring your clothes and other stuff in parts. I mean, you don't need winter clothes in summer and vice versa.

[SANDRO43]

Moderators (Vaughn, Boethius), how about changing this thread title to either:

- How MANY clothes did your wife bring?
- How much CLOTHING did your wife bring?

 

[Enot]

One suitcase so not much ... and that was lost for 2 weeks so we spent a lot of time shopping the first 2 weeks she was here.  Everytime we go back to her country, we bring more clothes back.

[Vaughn]

Moderators (Vaughn, Boethius), how about changing this thread title to either:

- How MANY clothes did your wife bring?
- How much CLOTHING did your wife bring?

 

Working on that, Sandro ~ Pages One, Four and Five are corrected....  I'll need a period of time to
finish Two and Three....

Update: Mission Accomplished

[SANDRO43]

Working on that, Sandro ~ Pages One, Four and Five are corrected....  I'll need a period of time to finish Two and Three....
Update: Mission Accomplished

There once was a thread on display
With a title that caused dismay.
But up stepped Vaughn,
And from that moment on,
Grammar was no longer at bay.

[Aloe]

Now im confused. Clothes are countable? So you can say i have 3 clothes ? (2 jeans and a blouse?)

[viking]

She brought one large suitcase and one small one. So far so good. More to follow when I have time.

[SANDRO43]

Now im confused. Clothes are countable? So you can say i have 3 clothes ? (2 jeans and a blouse?)

No Aloe, clothes is a mass noun:

In linguistics, a mass noun (also uncountable noun or non-count noun) is a common noun that presents entities as an unbounded mass. Given that different languages have different grammatical resources, the actual test for which nouns are mass nouns may vary between languages. In English, mass nouns are characterized by the fact that they cannot be directly modified by a numeral without specifying a unit of measurement, and that they cannot combine with an indefinite article (a or an). Thus, the mass noun "water" is quantified as "20 liters of water" while the count noun "chair" is quantified as "20 chairs." However, mass nouns (like count nouns) can be quantified in relative terms without unit specification (e.g., "much water," "many chairs").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun

It also happens to be a plurale tantum:

A plurale tantum (Latin for in the plural only; plural form: pluralia tantum) is a noun that appears only in the plural form and does not have a singular variant for referring to a single object. Many languages have pluralia tantum, such as the English words clothes, scissors, pants, and trousers, the Russian word "den'gi" [деньги] ("money"), the Swedish word inälvor ("intestines"), or the Dutch word hersenen ("brains").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurale_tantum

Its singular counterparts clothing and apparel should be used when in need to express counts, such as: 3 items of clothing, 2 pieces of apparel, etc.   

[rambler]

Aloe, short answer
I have 3 articles of clothing,
a lot a clothes,
few clothes,
many clothes...
My wife never has enough clothes
never too many clothes ... ; >)
always needs more clothes. 
Money is similar btw ... 

[Aloe]

No Aloe, clothes is a mass noun:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun

It also happens to be a plurale tantum:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurale_tantum

Its singular counterparts clothing and apparel should be used when in need to express counts, such as: 3 items of clothing, 2 pieces of apparel, etc.   

that doesnt explain why "many clothes"? Or did i miss it It says "much water", so why not "much clothes"?

[SANDRO43]

that doesnt explain why "many clothes"? Or did i miss it It says "much water", so why not "much clothes"?

Because of grammatical-number concordance: clothes is a plural.

The problem lies in the fact that much is the only English adjective, IINM, that also has a distinct plural form (many), and therefore must be made to agree with the grammatical number of the noun it refers to.

[mies]

that doesnt explain why "many clothes"? Or did i miss it It says "much water", so why not "much clothes"?

Sandro will probably correct me, but to me this case looks similar to "people".
You do not say "much people", instead you say "many people". Because "people" is a group of several (few or many) individuals, each individual is perfectly functional and independent member of "people" group. Therefore we say many. If the group of dead people were homogenized - then we can probably say "much people", but then probably the "people" part would be improper for identification.

[SANDRO43]

Sandro will probably correct me, but to me this case looks similar to "people". You do not say "much people", instead you say "many people". Because "people" is a group of several (few or many) individuals, each individual is perfectly functional and independent member of "people" group. Therefore we say many. If the group of dead people were homogenized - then we can probably say "much people", but then probably the "people" part would be improper for identification.

People is?/are?  more complicated , the case of a word with 2 similar but different meanings and therefore usages:

1. A noun referring to a non-specific group of individuals - like люди in Russian IINM.
2. A noun referring to a specific group of individuals (e.g. inhabitants, ethnics, etc.).

In case 1, it's a singulare tantum, i.e. a singular-only noun referring to a plurality (collective noun) and subjected to synesis (notional/situational agreement):

Synesis is a traditional grammatical/rhetorical term derived from Greek σύνεσις (originally meaning "unification, meeting, sense, conscience, insight, realization, mind, reason"). A constructio kata synesin (or constructio ad sensum in Latin) means a grammatical construction in which a word takes the gender or number not of the word with which it should regularly agree, but of some other word implied in that word. It is effectively an agreement of words with the sense, instead of the morphosyntactic form.

Example: If the band is popular, they will play next month.

Here, the plural pronoun they refers to the singular noun band. One can think of the antecedent of they as an implied plural noun such as musicians.

Such use in English grammar is often called notional agreement, because the agreement is with the notion of what the noun means, rather than the strict grammatical form of the noun. The term situational agreement is also found, since the same word may take a singular or plural verb depending on the intended emphasis of the speaker or writer; so:
The government is united. (Implication: it is a single cohesive body, with a single agreed policy).
The government are divided. (Implication: it is made up of different individuals, with their own different policy views).

Notional agreement for collective nouns is very common in British English. It is less customary in American English, but may sometimes be found after phrases of the type "a collective noun of plural nouns". Fowler (3e, 1996) cites for example
... a multitude of elements were intertwined (New York Review of Books).
... the majority of all the shareholdings are in the hands of women. (Daedalus).
... a handful of bathers were bobbing about in the waves. (Philip Roth)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesis
As such, it usually requires the plural for concordance: many people are coming. The above band example is an interesting case of situational concordance where both singular and plural are used (If the band are popular would be grammatically correct but does not really sound right). As also mentioned above, British and American usage do not always agree (the Police are investigating..., the Police is investigating...). In the last 3 examples, what determined the use of the plural verb was probably the 'semantic pull' exerted by the following 'natural' plurals (elements, shareholdings, bathers).

In case 2, it's a 'normal' noun: the people of Italy is often swarthy, the peoples of Europe are united.

On the other hand, we have data as an example of a 3-faced noun :

Data is a plural of datum, which is originally a Latin noun meaning “something given.” Today, data is used in English both:

(1) as a plural noun meaning “facts or pieces of information” (These data are described more fully elsewhere) and
(2) as a singular mass noun meaning “information”: Not much data is available on flood control in Brazil. It is almost always treated as a plural in scientific and academic writing. In other types of writing it is either singular or plural. The singular datum meaning “a piece of information” is now rare in all types of writing.
(3) In surveying and civil engineering, where datum has specialized senses, the plural form is datums.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/data

[mies]

People is?/are?   more complicated , the case of a word with 2 similar but different meanings and therefore usages:

1. A noun referring to a non-specific group of individuals - like люди in Russian IINM.
2. A noun referring to a specific group of individuals (e.g. inhabitants, ethnics, etc.).

thank you, Sandro. Of course I know about 2 different meanings - therefore I specified which one of the meaning I was talking about. The rest - is very interesting, and indeed educating. I like to learn the history and evolution of the language.

[Boethius]

"many" is for measurable (countable) nouns, while "much" is for uncountable nouns.

[SANDRO43]

Well, this:

If the group of dead people were homogenized

sounded a wee bit ghoulish .

but then probably the "people" part would be improper for identification.

Yes, probably very hard to identify a group of homogenized dead, a forensic nightmare .

[SANDRO43]

"many" is for measurable (countable) nouns, while "much" is for uncountable nouns.

Almost, but not quite :

	Singular	Plural
Countable	Much apple	Many apples
Non-countable	Much money	Many clothes

[mies]

Well, this:sounded a wee bit ghoulish

i agree. was merely rephrasing my biochemistry professor "let's take a mouse and make homogenate".
extra humor is contained in this phrase considering my nickname on this forum.

[SANDRO43]

extra humor is contained in this phrase considering my nickname on this forum.

Care to explain ? What I get for MIES is Metastable Impact Electron Spectroscopy, and a municipality in the district of Nyon in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland:

I don't think either much applies to you .

[Seeker]

Care to explain ? What I get for MIES is Metastable Impact Electron Spectroscopy, and a municipality in the district of Nyon in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland:

I don't think either much applies to you .

I was wondering the same thing... Bing and Google were of little help.   

[mies]

it's the name of Dutch origin http://www.ourbabynamer.com/meaning-of-Mies.html.
I guess it was an "insider joke" from a different crowd- the original meaning of the name was somehow substituted by "mice" - "muis".

[Patagonie]

I want to play with mies 
So my answers for her game are : who is stylish (sorry yes  it's not exactly the topic).
1,4,8,11,12,13,14,16,18.
I agree with Kievstar to say fashion is not stylish, not so often in fact.
Like Mies i think stylish is non temporal. Have his own taste is a more stronger personnal behavior rather than follow fashion. Often man who don't know how to dress go to the expansive and fashion shops to buy a whole set (if they have the money) and rely to the salesman. In general they seems well dressed (fortunately). But they don't know how to modify the set and are totally lost to compose a new one. And if the salesman is not a good one, a very good one ... Be careful.
Really i'm not impressed by a lot of designer even if they make a lot of money, i'm very picky with clothes and i never rely on the brand. Only with my taste, because : most important i must be comfortable with it , on my body, and with my soul, and first it's my soul who choice it. It's why i always (in the first minutes)never let the salesman approach me. He'll disturb me as i need all my focus to choice.

[mies]

Thank you, Patagonie
PMed you about game results.

[SFandEE]

Not to the exclusion of other cultures--I do like the UW sense of style.  Is the regional clothing that different though such that they buy what is available to them or is it that in a department store full of clothing they find the most amazing look and pull it together.

One of my most fundamental beliefs I have for women and clothing--the prettier her shape the better the clothing looks on her.  Regardless of what she is wearing.