Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to mark lewis:   
      
   ak>  Let's take a phrase: THERE IS NO TWO IDENTICAL NOSE-   
   ak>  PRINTS AMONG CATS. From one side, probably, I should   
   ak>  use "there are no..." -- I tell you about nose-prints.   
      
   ml>  it seems to me that "are" is correct since we're talking   
   ml>  about more than one "nose-print"...   
      
      
            Up to this point, I agree with both you & Mark.  :-)   
      
      
      
   ak>  As I say that maybe the fact is more important than   
   ak>  details. For instance:   
      
      
   ak>  Yann Martel's Life of Pi (winner prize book)   
        |I think you mean "prize-winning book"   
      
   ak>  -----Beginning of the citation-----   
   ak>  The lifeboat was now covered and the tarpaulin battened   
   ak>  down, except at my end. I squeezed in between the side   
   ak>  bench and the tarpaulin and pulled the remaining tarpaulin   
   ak>  over my head. I did not have much space. Between bench and   
   ak>  gunnel there was twelve inches, and the side benches were   
   ak>  only one and a half feet wide.   
   ak>  -----The end of the citation-----   
      
   ak>  Check it out: "there was twelve inches!"   
      
      
            Ah... but the author has Pi tell the story in the first person.  As a   
   translator of stories you need to be aware of the context.  Yes, the fact that   
   (unbeknown to Pi) there's a tiger hidden under the tarp is more important than   
   Pi's grammar & spelling... OTOH I regard scrupulous attention to detail as one   
   of the distinguishing features of an exceptionally good novelist.  Pi is a kid   
   of roughly the same age as my students in grade eight, and he's the only human   
   witness to these events.  His parents are/were apparently quite well-educated.   
   If he makes typical grade eight errors from time to time, however... or uses a   
   variant spelling in preference to the more conventional "gunwale"... that's in   
   character!  Huckleberry Finn, at more or less the same age, spoke as a kid who   
   had skipped out of school & who lived in the southeastern US would have spoken   
   in Mark Twain's day.  I don't expect such fictitious personages to dot all the   
   i's & cross all the t's correctly.  When other adults here ask me to "find two   
   errors, please" I see they're operating on a much more advanced level....  ;-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)