For people with English mother language

[Lior]

I had an English test yesterday.

and I had to complete this simple sentence:

"Millions came to visit us, these numbers were much ______ than we expected"

I completed with "bigger" but some have completed with "higher".

Is "bigger" ok? can I say "These are *bigger* numbers." ?

[aknisely]

You can, but "these numbers were much higher" is far more mainstream. I don't think I can hear myself saying "bigger" in that phrase. Sorry buddy

By the way, whereabouts from Israel are you?

[beachbum]

If they mark u wrong for 'bigger' you can always tell the teachers that the original sentence is grammatically incorrect anyway!!!

PS Personally, I would say 'greater' in that context.
Regards
Stuart

[Jim Brown]

But that assumes there were more people than expected. What about if there were actually fewer, then you'd have been wrong both synactically and factually!

[beachbum]

I dont think i could quite accommodate more than a million visitors anyhow. I mean, think of the queue for the shower in the morning. And different people wanting to watch different TV channels. Nah.. i think getting a million ppl to visit will always be more than i expect!!

PS Jim, u want me to do anything with Mugabe when he is over here? Heard ur currency and economy is suffering cos of fears that Zimbabwe's 'farm parties' may spread ur way? Want me to kick him one in the shins?

[Jim Brown]

Raise your sights a bit Stuart and get him a good one in the goolies. And another one.

PS- Lucky win again there yesterday eh? Scraped home again, by a mere innings and a bit.

[chrismitchell]

I think that the words higher or greater would work in those situations, though bigger may not have, but I agree with Beachbum.. the sentence is grammatically incorrect anyway.

[CiberTHuG]

I'm not sure what the grammatical error Beachbum is reffering to is. But I would've answered "greater". I would also change the wording of the sentence to:

Millions came to visit us, this number was much greater than we expected.

Millions is plural because it is two or more million, but it is not seperates hosts, just one single crowd of two or more million, which is why I would make "this number" single, not plural.

It is socially acceptable to say bigger, but technically bigger reffers to size, and numbers don't have a size, technically. But if they are going to make "these numbers" plural, then they shouldn't be nit picky enough to count bigger wrong.

On the converse, "this number was much smaller" works. Even though it was meant to reffer to size, no one uses "weaker" as often.

[DerFarm]

Sorry guys, in this case the modifier has to be LARGER or SMALLER. In this case the object of the sentence (numbers) is being compared to magnitude.

Bigger refers to size: buildings are bigger (oddly enough, smaller is also a size referent)

Higher refers to height: Eagles fly higher than chickens

Better luck next time

[CiberTHuG]

Originally posted by DerFarm
Sorry guys, in this case the modifier has to be LARGER or SMALLER. In this case the object of the sentence (numbers) is being compared to magnitude.

Bigger refers to size: buildings are bigger (oddly enough, smaller is also a size referent)

Higher refers to height: Eagles fly higher than chickens

Better luck next time

Did you write the test? I would say "greater" is just as good an answer as "larger", if not more so.

I would also say that there is no grammatical mistake in using "bigger" or "higher", just idiomatic ones.

But since the sentence was broken to begin with, it is a moot point.

[chrisjk]

Bigger is about the only large-quantifying word that doesn't fit in that sentence...higher, larger, greater are all good.

[sail3005]

did anyone think about using smaller?