Hi, as far as I know we usually say
three million rather than three millions when we talk about a certain dollar amount.
However, on of my Napoleon Hill tapes he uses the plural form (millions). What is the rule here?
Thanks in advance,
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC short conversations: Talking about a Dan Brown movie[YSaerTTEW443543]
Maybe I am completely wrong, but as far as I can hear and understand:
in technical contexts or with numbers (25 million) always ‘million’ is used;
millions = many millions is used informally. An example from my dictionary is: The programme was viewed on television in millions of homes.
Tamara
Hi,
I agree with you, Tamara.
Well, here is what Napoleon Hill says on the tape and he clearly uses the plural form (millions):
“… when I met them the combined wealth of those 6 men was around twenty five millions of dollars …”[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC short conversations: Paying the fitness membership fee[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Torsten,
If you are using million adjectivally before or after the noun, the pattern is to drop the ‘s’ as in a 3 million dollar house or a house worth 3 million or using it as a noun - a house costing millions of dollars. Formaility or informality doesn’t really come into the matter.
Alan
Hi Torsten
Maybe it’s that age-old rule again: If you’re rich and/or famous, you can afford to say whatever you like. :lol:
Seriously, though, he may simply have said it that way for effect. In other words, it’s guaranteed to be noticed by native speakers simply because it mixes two well-known rules of grammar together.
On the other hand, he did grow up in a two-room cabin in the backwoods town of Pound, Virginia… Maybe this hillbilly dictionary will be of some help: :lol:
southernsass.com/HillbillyDictionary.html
Amy
It surely is of great help… and hilarious, too! After perusing it for a while, I found some really funny sayings. How about these ones:
:lol:
Hi Conchita
The English you can hear in the “Southern states” is wonderfully colorful and full of inventive imagery. And that imagery is often quite humorous. I always enjoy it. Years ago I had a boyfriend from “down south” and his southern way of expressing things had me laughing endlessly. Even simple or ordinary ideas were often inventively expressed.
For example, you can say “That’s good” or “That’s fine”. A standard (but boring) way to make it better would be to say “very fine” or “the best”. But instead he’d always say something like “That’s finer than frog hair”. :lol:
I remember asking him about that particular expression once. His reaction was not to tell me that it’s a rather typical expression in his area and means “sublime”. Instead he explained it this way: “Ain’t hardly nothing finer than the hair on a frog, now is there?.” :lol:
Amy
That’s what I call making the most out the language :lol: ! Having a weakness for imagery (maybe that’s why I like Cockney slang rhymes, too!), I’m always scribbling down funny comparisons (as well as sayings, idioms, etc.) as I read or hear about them, which isn’t terribly often either.
As I’ve said before, many of us end up using the same old boring words again and again, which is a shame considering the richness of language. Try to record your everyday/average conversations and you’ll see what I mean – unless you don’t fall into that category, lucky you creative speakers!