Friday, December 7, 2012
"Most lizards are born from eggs, but a few are born from their mother's body." How about "mothers' bodies"?
"Most lizards are born from eggs, but a few are born from their mother's body." How about "mothers' bodies"?
I'm an EFL teacher from Taiwan. A student got me a question as my title. For those of u who r native speakers, please explain the difference between the two sentences below, 1. Most lizards are born from eggs, but a few are born from their mother's body. 2. Most lizards are born from eggs, but a few are born from their mothers' bodies. Thanks a lot! BTW, I've asked some Americans here, their first instinctive choice is no.1 sentence. But a few is a plural pronoun, we should put "mothers' bodies" instead, shouldn't we? BTW2, I wish the question to be answered by English speakers. And please also compare the difference between the 2 phrases. Thank u very much.
Words & Wordplay - 6 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
mothers' is correct...the lizards have more than one mother.
2 :
I believe sentence #1 is correct. True, "a Few" is plural, but as we know in nature, a mother can give birth to more than one offspring. Sentence #2 infers that more than one mother can give birth to the same offspring......
3 :
The second one suggest each Lizard born from a Body has more then one Mother and is born from more then one body. [Or more exact,.. it suggest a single mother has more then one body] The first is correct. You did catch on. [ Nevermind,.. I had to pay more attention to what you suggested... you are saying that both Lizard's have more then one mother AND lizard's mothers have more then one body. That is incorrect,.. number 1 is correct.] Added: Okay a break down. When the Sentences say A Few and move on to the description, it is saying in the cases of each Lizard of those few,.. not all as a collective. This is what A, Few, and Their creates. You do not want to say there is a single mother that is giving birth to ALL THE LIZARDS in the WORLD born from a body. So in a case by case basis For those few, each is born from their Mother's Body. [Someone is messing with me in reality because they want to hurt me and break things.] Were you to change it, you were to be saying in the second that each Lizard's mother has more then one body. Were you to word it as you are asking " Mothers' Bodies" you would be saying each Lizard has MORE THEN ONE Mother and is born out of these multiple mothers' bodies. If you are confused about the point of "their", it's just a substitute for " His or Hers". It just avoids dealing with gender.
4 :
The first one can be correct if you are talking about one mother lizard and her few offspring. Otherwise, it would be wrong because of the word their, because their obviously indicates more than one. The second is correct because it's obvious that you are talking about more than one mother and more than one offspring.
5 :
Sentence one is correct because the plural possessive pronoun 'their' refers to the plural pronoun 'few,' while 'mother's' indicates that each lizard has a single mother.
6 :
#2 is correct because you are using "few" as plural "types" which clearly have different mothers since they are not the same species. (#1 is wrong because it means the lizards come from the same mother, which is not the case.) To be more clear, you could say a "few species" or a "few types": Most lizards are born from eggs, but a few species are * born live. * born from their mothers' bodies. * born from the mother's body. ================================= Note 1: "Mothers' bodies" implies the lizards have several mothers *together as a group* which is correct; it does NOT mean that the lizards have more than one mother *each*, as some people incorrectly responded. There are several wrong answers. Other examples regarding possessive plurals: If the children have the same mother: "The twins are at their mother's house." If the children have different mothers: "All the foster children were returned to their mothers' houses." This does NOT mean any of the children has more than one mother. Since they have separate mothers, together as a group there are several mothers. Note 2: I am a native speaker and have edited and proofread for academic and professional publication and public presentations.
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