June 17, 2006

Only the largest

You know what bugs me for no earthshaking reason? When people say something like: "This is the only person in India with the largest number of stamps under one roof."

What that means is:
    "There is no stamp collection in India that has more than X stamps. Many people have stamp collections with exactly X stamps. This is one of those people. And this person is the only person who has that many stamps under one roof."
Do they really mean to say this? Nope. What they mean is: "This person has the largest stamp collection in India."

So why not say that?

3 comments:

Sidin said...

Ah.

Everything depends on that roof. Isn't that roof the most critical element then? In front of the monumental significance of that roof his stamp collection pales into insignificance.

Must... fight urge... to make... pun... on roof... proof... etc.

Bombay Addict said...

bit aside - D3 - why that change in your photo from the 3 orange balls to trunk/roots of an old tree ? Hm..symbolic lagta hai. Pls explain..

FifthBeatle said...

cant say i've ever heard the phrase... but it'd sure be a stupid one if they *do* use it.. where'd you come across it? or are you just informing the public in advance about phrases you dont want to hear?