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From: Einde O'Callaghan <eindeoc@freenet.de>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: Use of the word "any"
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:23:54 +0100
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Kenneth M. Lin wrote:
> I was always taught that the word "any" should be followed by a singular
> noun unless you specify that it's plural, such as "any two persons can
> play." However, I have seen people saying "any questions" even though that
> any implies just one. Can someone enlighten me?
>
>
"Any" is used in questions and negative sentences before plural
countable nouns and uncountable nouns (which by definition are singular).
"Any quuestions?" as a query is an abbreviated form of "Does anybody
have any questions?" - there ius no implication that it's regerring to a
single question.
There is another usage of "any" in positive sentences that I won't go
into here, but this follows the same rule - before plural countable
nouns and uncountable nouns (which are always singular).
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
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