Dear Michel, Dear FISers, In my native language, Hungarian, information can be countable in certain cases.
For example, there is an event, and I got information from Mr. A, from Mr. B and Ms. C about the same event. Then we say, "I have informations about the event", distinguishing it from the situation when I would have information only from a single source. Even much, we say, "I've got two informations from Mr. D" about the same event. In other cases, we say, "police have got several informations about the crime". "Several informations are available". In these cases we do not say "much information", because those are countable. 3 or 4, etc. This plural usage is most often in the forms "my informations", "his informations", their informations" etc. At least in Hungarian. In scientific usage, when a physicist detects an event, e.g., the trace of a decayed particle, a beta radiation, a single photon, etc., that is called "an" information on the system (not in general, information, rather a concrete, well determined kind of information). We emphasize in this way, that we know, what is the information he got on the system. If he detects three different events, those are together "three informations" on the system. Also, at least in Hungarian. :-) Gyuri At 15:35 2008.12.06. +0100, you wrote: >Hello FISers. > >Recently, one of my colleagues attract my attention on the following point. >In French, we often use information as a countable quantity, >so that we can write "informations". >In English, it seems that it is unusual, if not incorrect, to do that. >(1) Please can some English native FISers give their opinion about that ? >(2) Please can some FISers from non English-speaking countries tell us >how is the situation in their own language ? > >Thank you very much. > >Michel. > >Michel Petitjean, >DSV/iBiTec-S/SB2SM (CNRS URA 2096), CEA Saclay, bat. 528, >91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France. >Phone: +331 6908 4006 / Fax: +331 6908 4007 >E-mail: [email protected] >http://petitjeanmichel.free.fr/itoweb.petitjean.html > >_______________________________________________ >fis mailing list >[email protected] >https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis <http://conferences.hu/symmetry2009/>Symmetry Festival <http://conferences.hu/symmetry2009/> 2009, Registration, Abstract submission etc. <http://symmetry.hu/coming-meetings.html>Symmetry Festival 2009, Budapest, 31 July - 4 August ____________________________________________________ <http://www.mtakszi.iif.hu/darvas.htm>Gyorgy Darvas E-mail / Skype: [email protected] <http://symmetry.hu/>S Y M M E T R I O N Address: c/o MTA KSZI; 18 Nador St., Budapest, H-1051 Hungary Mailing address: P.O. Box 994, Budapest, H-1245 Hungary Fax: 36 (1) 331-3161 Phone: 36 (1) 312-3022; 36 (1) 331-3975 <http://www.springer.com/birkhauser/mathematics/book/978-3-7643-7554-6>Monograph: Symmetry <http://hps.elte.hu/oktaeder/atmeneti/darvas.htm#English>Course of lectures ____________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ fis mailing list [email protected] https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
