Hi, Anton!  Recently you wrote in a message to All:

AS>  The chief of a computer-science laboratory where my
AS>  friend works condemned his usage of the word `several'
AS>  in the the following sentence:

AS>  We present several new piecewise-polynomial kernels
AS>  for image interpolation.

AS>  on the ground that it is a typical mistake made by
AS>  those who learned English in a Russian school. Perhaps
AS>  I was not sufficiently diligent in the English classes
AS>  of my Russian school,


          Don't sell yourself short!  IMHO this individual's reaction probably says more about him or her than it does about you....  :-Q



AS>  but I see no fault in that sentence, except maybe for
AS>  a missing introductory phrase, such as "In this article,
AS>  we present..." Do you?


          No.  But I can see how some folk might have a wonderful time arguing about the precise numbers involved when we use terms like "a couple", "a few", "several", and "many".  In informal speech "a couple" can mean two or three... and within certain limits the other terms also refer to an unspecified number.

          How many kernels was your friend offering?  If the actual number was more than two or three but fewer than "many" he or she used the term "several" quite correctly, according to a couple of English dictionaries I read.  Mark & Dallas & I also agree on this.  However, one source says "more than two".  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+