Timeline for Are "small" and "little" interchangeable here
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 19 at 3:16 | comment | added | cfr | 'There will be a little rain around noon' is perfectly fine. 'Small' is different. You'd need e.g. 'There will be a small amount of rain about noon.' Or 'a small rain shower', though 'light' sounds better there, as you've written. But 'a little <weather-thing>' works in lots of cases: 'snow', 'sunshine', 'thunder', 'hail', 'wind', 'cloud', 'mist' etc. So I don't think there's a general rule of the sort you suggest. | |
| Nov 28, 2020 at 8:39 | comment | added | Old Brixtonian | Small and big don't work for thunder. But it is a sound. Lots of words describe sounds: loud, quiet, booming, deafening, ear-splitting... It can rumble, crash, roar, explode, echo, rattle things... | |
| Nov 28, 2020 at 8:24 | comment | added | NewPlanet | What about "thunder"? Only "heavy thunder" is acceptable? Doesn't "small/big thunder" work? | |
| Nov 28, 2020 at 8:23 | comment | added | Old Brixtonian | @jwpfox Thank you. I've changed it. | |
| Nov 28, 2020 at 8:20 | history | edited | Old Brixtonian | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Nov 28, 2020 at 8:17 | comment | added | jwpfox | Rain is often plural. e.g. “The summer rains meant a good crop this year.” | |
| Nov 28, 2020 at 8:10 | comment | added | Old Brixtonian | @NewPlanet "There has been little rain" does not describe the size of the raindrops. "Small rain clouds" don't contain small rain and neither do small rain showers , small rain shadows, small rain frogs, small rain trees, small rain hats or small rain bags. | |
| Nov 28, 2020 at 7:24 | comment | added | NewPlanet | So the wrong collocations of "little rain", "small rain" are widespread: Google 4,680,000 hits for "little rain"; 641,000 hits for "small rain". | |
| Nov 28, 2020 at 7:18 | vote | accept | NewPlanet | ||
| Nov 28, 2020 at 6:34 | history | answered | Old Brixtonian | CC BY-SA 4.0 |