3 ms·
Reading this, I realized that a similar thing developed in German, my native tongue, but from a different root. As a noun, capital Paar refers to a pair of exac
by w-m 3y ago
Reading this, I realized that a similar thing developed in German, my native tongue, but from a different root. As a noun, capital Paar refers to a pair of exactly two, like “ein Paar Schuhe”, or a couple (n.), like “das Paar”. As a pronoun, lowercase paar refers to a few or a couple of.
This leads to this weird situation where “ein Paar Socken” is exactly two socks, but “ein paar Socken” can be a few socks, like 2-7. The pronunciation is exactly the same, and both versions are in common use.
- Mesopropithecus 3y agoInteresting. Though "ein Paar" is singular, "ein paar" is plural, making it clear from the context in many cases. Curiously, it's not clear in the case where it matters most: "please bring [ein [pP]aar Socken]". As an engineer, I'd say "please bring ein Sockenpaar" when I mean ein Paar, for clarity, for the low price of people thinking I'm weird.