Text, A Text, Texts
I wrote “Multiple pages of recipes from the book, each page consisting of a photo and a text.” And, Manny pointed out to me that “a text” is wrong, that it should simply be “text”. But the plural form of the word “text” actually exists. If “texts” is legal, then “a text” must also exist. In what situation would one use “a text”?
Dyske
November 6, 2002, 7:40pm
Now Roxy tells me that she uses "a text" in situations like "I found a reliable text on the Internet".
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse
yoinkmydanish
November 11, 2002, 4:46pm
A text generally means an individual self-cohesive text. A bunch of individual self-cohesive texts would be 'texts'. A bunch of words on a page are 'text'. This little blurb is text, not a text.
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse
tnh
March 17, 2003, 11:34pm
Dariensan nailed it: some text (the words on one or several pages in a book), a text (the whole book), some texts (several whole books).
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse
owl (unregistered)
March 19, 2003, 7:05pm
So what they are saying is that it all depends on the context. Which isn't meant to trick you, this is a protext.
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse