Comments on: The Plurals Are Rain and Snow http://languageandgrammar.com/2008/02/29/the-plurals-are-rain-and-snow/ Mon, 12 Dec 2011 01:34:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: John McIntyre http://languageandgrammar.com/2008/02/29/the-plurals-are-rain-and-snow/#comment-77 Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:09:17 +0000 http://languageandgrammar.wordpress.com/?p=71#comment-77 Well, most of the time. But it would be a shame to give up Villon’s “Ou sont les neiges d’antan?” It’s usually translated, “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” But Richard Wilber got to the point more succinctly in his English version: “But where shall last year’s snow be fund?”

Sherry’s reply: Yes, I agree. There are many differences between American English and other languages. In French, while the word for snow is neige, the plural snows is used in certain cases, for example, neiges eternelles, which means perpetual snow. Many other examples of differences between American English and other languages exist.

To add to that, even in great American literature do we find an example: Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Of course, throughout history, there have been examples of the use of non-standard and even substandard grammar in literature.

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