Wednesday, May 6, 2009

"few"

"After all, few foods improve in the refrigerator. They don’t improve in your freezer, either, but they degrade more slowly, especially if you keep the temperature at 0 degrees or below. Check it with a thermometer, and re-check every few months. Note that full freezers are more efficient than half-full ones, a further inducement to freeze more."

- A good example of the usage of the word "few" without a preceding "a", where it actually means "none at all", rather than "small in number"... Prof. Sudha Shastry at IITB used to stress a lot on this... I think the one above is a good example becoz the second sentence is a negative sentence with an "either" as well, Indicating that the first one also has a similar negative implication, something like "no foods improve in the refrigerator."

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