Here's one for you grammarians

[desperance]

In the phrase "all manner of", is the word 'manner' singular as it appears, or is it some kind of hidden plural? Does one say "There was all manner of ways", or "There were all manner of ways"?

Comments

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Hi, this is a hijacking.

Seeing this discussion reminded me of something I keep seeing which is driving me mad: different than. I seem to recall having been taught it should be different from, and it's what I blissfully used. But that dratted different than popped up recently and started multiplying. I see it everywhere, these days. Was I led astray for years and has reality finally caught up with me? Or is it one of those mistakes that are so wrong they seduce people into thinking this is the long-lost proper way to speak?

Inquiring French minds need to be told.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It's a cross-Atlantic thing: in the UK we tend to say different from or sometimes different to; different than is American. And wrong. (Not just 'because it's American'; grammatically it makes no sense, historically it's insupportable...) And, inevitably, it's starting to filter over here thru' the TV and such. We should probably give up now, but me, I'm still fightin'...

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Thanks, makes me feel better. But what really puzzled me was that it seemed to be quite recent. I can't remember seeing this until some months, maybe a couple of years, ago. It felt like those old SF short stories where the world changes due to some tinkering with the past, and only the hero remembers how it truly was, before the present was altered.