Could you tell me about it in details?
No, I couldn't.
In English we use the plural, details, in phrases like Give me the details. We can also use an adjectival form, detailed, in phrases like I look forward to receiving more detailed information from you.
But in detail is a set phrase, and it is ALWAYS singular. As with so many of these Chinglish eccentricities, this wouldn't be at all a difficult usage to recognise, remember, and assimilate if people here actually bothered to read very much authentic English (rather than the Chinglish drivel that most of the domestic educational publishers churn out), and read more attentively, more actively.
And, once again, I am fairly certain - because of its astonishing ubiquity - that this error has been propagated by a bad high school textbook.
I wish I could describe the history of this aberration in more detail for you, but I haven't yet been able to identify the book or books in question.
3 comments:
Thank you for such an excellent summaries of this problem.
We shall contact the relevant authorities and have look at the issue more caresfully.
My mission, as ever, is to educate, enlighten, and inform.
Are your plurals-for-singulars here conscious parody or inadvertent typos?
Parody and satire, which, like anal sex, done clumsily tends to exponentially diminish in effectiveness and could well lead to messy unintended consequences.
BTW: Did you get my email?
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