myriad

[springs]

Oh, bring back quick fire, this doesn't merit a thread on its own.


The colours of the city dazzled him: the green of the palace gardens; the light coloured houses, reflecting the hot sun; the myriad of people, bumping against one another,




should I have the of or not? myriad people - is it like the hoi poloi, where techically I know it's the the common people, but people look for the the?

[Venusian Broon]

A quick check of sources seems to state that it can be used as an adjective for innumerable and also a noun for a large definite number.

So it seems both myriad people and myriad of people is acceptable.

In terms of your sentence I'd probably go for the adjective and drop the 'of'. Because your protagonist I assume has not counted the people exactly, but just sees lots and lots of them!

[iansales]

No "of" required. It's either a myriad (noun), or a myriad people (adjective).

[Boneman]

I dunno - what Ian says is correct, but I'd have written the way you do...

[springs]

I know I keep reading it and thinking it needs the of for the flow - it's in an unusually (for me) descriptive bit and without it the pace is knocked off, some of the evocativeness is disrupted. Never thought I'd hear myself say that.... *sigh* I think I'll keep it, it doesn't seem so wrong anyone is going to grimace...

[allmywires]

I'd write 'myriad of' but yes, semantically it's wrong. for the sake of flow, you could use 'plethora of' instead? (One of my favourite words!)

[HareBrain]

I disagree that it flows better with the "of". Also, keeping it is wrong and will make kittens cry.

[springs]

But there's something about myriad, it's like a kaleidoscope, about the colour and a confusing effect. (although I, too, like plethora)

Which makes me think about some comments I've come across about not using words people might have to look up, and how spellcheckers etc are ruining the richness of language because we shift to the more common ones. Will words like myriad and plethora start to disappear. There could be a thread in this.... obscure-ish words (although neither is in my book) which might be endangered....

@HB. Grrr. Kittens - I laugh in the face of their tears. Possibly. Probably not....

[allmywires]

I have a strange thing with words. If I've heard a strange word, and I don't necessarily know what it means, sometimes I'll get the urge to use it in a sentence, and when I look it up it's exactly what I want it to mean. Spooky.

Springs, the internet/Twitter/texting/Facebook(delete where appropriate) are ruining words and language for everyone. I would use nice, fancy words because I like them, and if somebody has to look it up, well, you've done your good deed for linguistics for the day.

[iansales]

If it's wrong, it's wrong. People will read it and say, that's wrong, this author doesn't know English grammar. You could get away with it in dialogue but not in prose.

[alchemist]

Originally Posted by springs1971

There could be a thread in this.... obscure-ish words (although neither is in my book) which might be endangered....

We do have this thread to try and keep the language alive...
eloquent... exotic... esoteric... (please provide definitions)

[nightdreamer]

This has turned out to be a surprisingly interesting thread. I think I'll break with the consensus and say that using of is symantically correct even though it parts with common usage. From the World English Dictionary defining of: "used after words or phrases expressing quantities: a pint of milk." When used with number (as opposed to quantity), combined with a noun, we generally omit the of: I need five applies. But when we switch to a pronoun, we put the of back in: I need five of them. I don't think it's a deal-breaker either way, though since people is a noun and myriad expresses a number we would normally omit it. Consider what is going to make more direct sense to the reader.

[Venusian Broon]

Looking into it further Springs, from the Merriam-Webster dictionary online:

"Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it."

So I'd side with nightdreamer in that putting the 'of' in is ok. But clearly might be a bit controversial

[springs]

Well, I was wrong that it didn't need a thread. I'm not sure about the wrong is wrong argument; if it's wrong and I've done it naively, then yes, sure it's wrong. If it's wrong but thought about and used for impact, and the rest of the words around it are correct then I think it can be effective.

The two read slightly differently to me, when I say the myriad of people it's meant to indicate a crowd, confusing the pov of view character, overwhelming him in their number and intensity. If I say myriad people it seems to move the emphasis from the impact on the pov voice to the crowd itself ie they were all different.

I'm not expressing this very well, but I think - after half an hour working in the garden, considering it - that it is the myriad of, otherwise I change what I'm trying to say, and, in my mind, weaken it.

VB's last post is very interesting, as I was sure I'd seen it used before, and I'm quite a big Thoreau fan, so maybe that's where, but if it's good enough for him, then perhaps for me, too.

If it's a little old fashioned, that isn't a problem, the description of the sci fi city is classical, so maybe it fits.

The poor kittens, I'm so sorry....

@Vertigo I will print and laminate, thank you.

[Vertigo]

I would agree with you that I read 'myriad' and 'myriad of' differently and in fact exactly the way you have just described them.

A quick google produced:

Believe it or not, most language experts say that either way is fine. Myriad was actually used as a noun in English long before it was used as an adjective, and today it's considered both a noun and an adjective, which means it can be used with an a before it (as a noun) or without an a before it (as an adjective).

Nevertheless, if you choose to say or write "a myriad of," I must warn you that you'll encounter occasional but vehement resistance. You may want to print this page, laminate it, and carry it in your wallet as a defense.

And:

Some traditionalists object to the word “of” after “myriad” or an “a” before, though both are fairly common in formal writing. The word is originally Greek, meaning 10,000, but now usually means “a great many.” Its main function is as a noun, and the adjective derived from it shows its origins by being reluctant to behave like other nouns expressing amount, like “ton” as in “I’ve got a ton of work to do.” In contrast: “I have myriad tasks to complete at work.”

Quite interesting; there doesn't seem to be a real consensus out there.