Isn't the plural use of performance related to whether it is countable
or not?
One can refer to the overall performance of an athlete.
If one refers to an athlete's specific performance of individual
activities, wouldn't it be ok to use performances?
For example,
"The 50m and 100m performances of mainland girls in the Asian Games two
years ago had prompted ..."
You would probably not say:
"The 50m and 100m performance of mainland girls in the Asian Games two
years ago had prompted ..."
Chris
Miss Elaine Eos wrote:
> In article <440ffc33$0$25198$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>,
> cguttman <4everclever4@web.de> wrote:
>
>
>>>We can measure an athlete's performance.
>>>
>>>We can also measure the performance of MANY athletes.
>
>
>>If we measure the performance for running and swimming of the same
>>athlete, can I say that measured two performances?
>
>
> No. We can say we measured that athlete's performance in two areas.
> See "homonym":
>
>
>>><http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=homonym>
>
>
> An athlete's performance is just one thing, even though it can be
> measured under many circumstances. It's like his height: we can measure
> his height while running, or while swimming, but we've still only
> measured the athlete's one and only height, not his heights. There is
> only one height or performance.
>
> With a bardic performance, the performance itself is a thing, apart from
> the performers. For this reason, there can be two or more of them, and
> there can be "performances."
>
> Interestingly, even with multiple things having performance being
> measured (as opposed to giving a performance), there's still just the
> one.
>
> "My new car really performs well on the highway. Of course, my old car
> performed well, too. They both have great performance; I enjoy driving
> both of them."
>
> But also...
>
> "That was some performance you gave in the meeting, this morning. While
> not quite as entertaining as the one last week, they were both great
> performances."
>
> Performance as a measure is singular. Performance as a display can be
> plural.
>
|
| Follow-ups: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|