研究习作: email, an email and emails

xujiajin

xujiajin

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“mail” and “email,” like “letter,”
used to be used uncountably according to
most dictionaries. But now a mail, an email
and email are quite alright? But when did
this happen? Are there any corpus evidences?

[本贴已被 作者 于 2005年08月05日 13时51分46秒 编辑过]​
 
The BNC World shows that that "mail"
is not used a singular count noun (not "a mail").
But it is alright as in "a mail order", "a mail catalogue" etc.
Mails in plural is commonly used.

There are only 3 instances of "email" (an email message,
an email list server, anemal facility), because at the time
when the BNC was completed in the early 1990s,
email was not so widely used as today.
There should be a lot of occurrences of "email" in the ANC.

[本贴已被 xujiajin 于 2005年08月05日 13时54分55秒 编辑过]​
 
In LOB, Brown, FLOB and Frown, the patterns are similar.
No instance of "email"; singular "mail" is used
as a nominal modifier; plural "mails" are used.

[本贴已被 xujiajin 于 2005年08月05日 13时55分52秒 编辑过]​
 
Of course we need to have a closer look at the context of email and its collocational patterns.
 
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