1月２３日のブログで紹介したカナダ人建築家から、彼女の発言の英語を少しちゃんと書き直したいと言って、次の文章を送ってきてくれましたので号外的に掲載します。
TEXT
regarding your question on the 28 nov statement
As a native English speaker (although I believe language is not necessarily an issue in today's situation of globalised media and therefore language conventions), 'thousands' is simply 'thousands'.
Not 'tens of thousands', because then you would write 'tens of thousands'.
Not 'hundreds of thousands', because then you would write 'hundreds of thousands'.
Examples of this are abundant in news articles where, for maximum sales ( i.e. grabbing the public's attention, often by tactics of sensationalism and/or fear)
journalists will inevitably try to express the maximum number possible without breaching company policies on responsible and accurate reportage.
One can look at recent examples of man-made and natural disasters (the twin towers, hurricane Katrina, demonstrations, earthquakes, viruses,and so forth) which are consistently reported to the general public with the maximum numerical values - newspapers will never write 'thousands' if they can write 'tens of thousands'.
Reading 'thousands' on your blog would leave me understanding, if I did not know anything about the bombing,
that this referred to a value definitely under 10,000. Which of course, in this case, is a rather huge understatement of the real events.
contributor - architect, Canadian
TEXT
regarding your question on the 28 nov statement
As a native English speaker (although I believe language is not necessarily an issue in today's situation of globalised media and therefore language conventions), 'thousands' is simply 'thousands'.
Not 'tens of thousands', because then you would write 'tens of thousands'.
Not 'hundreds of thousands', because then you would write 'hundreds of thousands'.
Examples of this are abundant in news articles where, for maximum sales ( i.e. grabbing the public's attention, often by tactics of sensationalism and/or fear)
journalists will inevitably try to express the maximum number possible without breaching company policies on responsible and accurate reportage.
One can look at recent examples of man-made and natural disasters (the twin towers, hurricane Katrina, demonstrations, earthquakes, viruses,and so forth) which are consistently reported to the general public with the maximum numerical values - newspapers will never write 'thousands' if they can write 'tens of thousands'.
Reading 'thousands' on your blog would leave me understanding, if I did not know anything about the bombing,
that this referred to a value definitely under 10,000. Which of course, in this case, is a rather huge understatement of the real events.
contributor - architect, Canadian