Hello, all

The chief of a computer-science laboratory where my friend works
condemned his usage of the word `several' in the the following
sentence:

We present several new piecewise-polynomial kernels for image
interpolation.

on the ground that it is a typical mistake made by those who
learned English in a Russian school. Perhaps I was not sufficiently
diligent in the English classes of my Russian school, but I see no
fault in that sentence, except maybe for a missing introductory
phrase, such as "In this article, we present..." Do you?

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Re: `Several' misapplied?
By: Anton Shepelev to All on Mon Mar 29 2021 01:18:14

The chief of a computer-science laboratory where my friend works
condemned his usage of the word `several' in the the following
sentence:

We present several new piecewise-polynomial kernels for image
interpolation.

on the ground that it is a typical mistake made by those who
learned English in a Russian school. Perhaps I was not sufficiently
diligent in the English classes of my Russian school, but I see no
fault in that sentence, except maybe for a missing introductory
phrase, such as "In this article, we present..." Do you?

there's nothing wrong with that sentence... "several" specifically means "three or more but not too many more" ;)

the prepending of "In this article" doesn't really add anything to the sentence...

why did the chief of a computer-science laboratory think there was a problem with it?


)\/(ark
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Hi, Anton! Recently you wrote in a message to All:

The chief of a computer-science laboratory where my
friend works condemned his usage of the word `several'
in the the following sentence:

We present several new piecewise-polynomial kernels
for image interpolation.

on the ground that it is a typical mistake made by
those who learned English in a Russian school. Perhaps
I was not sufficiently diligent in the English classes
of my Russian school,

Don't sell yourself short! IMHO this individual's reaction probably says more about him or her than it does about you.... :-Q

but I see no fault in that sentence, except maybe for
a missing introductory phrase, such as "In this article,
we present..." Do you?

No. But I can see how some folk might have a wonderful time arguing about the precise numbers involved when we use terms like "a couple", "a few", "several", and "many". In informal speech "a couple" can mean two or three... and within certain limits the other terms also refer to an unspecified number.

How many kernels was your friend offering? If the actual number was more than two or three but fewer than "many" he or she used the term "several" quite correctly, according to a couple of English dictionaries I read. Mark & Dallas & I also agree on this. However, one source says "more than two". :-)




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)\/(ark Lewis:

there's nothing wrong with that sentence... "several"
specifically means "three or more but not too many more"
;)

the prepending of "In this article" doesn't really add
anything to the sentence...

why did the chief of a computer-science laboratory think
there was a problem with it?

My friend's account of it was so vague and incomplete that I
daredn't try retell it here. It included, for example, a
contrast with "a function of several arguments", which the
chief considered correct and which is in fact an interesting
example of `several' used in technical language with a mean-
ing that is wider than the general one: any naturual number
greater than unity.

As to my friend's article, he has decided to replace `sever-
al' with `a number of' because he likes it better.

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