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- "Mat är viktigare än dryck."
14 Comments
37
The comment above seems to be a reply to another comment no longer here. But I can see what the discussion was about:
1. Food is more important than drink.
2. Food is more important than drinks.
Both the above are grammatical English, but 1 is better style.
When I here this sentence I know that it probably means drinking water or some normal liquid but to my family "drink" is not important to have at all. "The Drink" or "drink" is alcohol, more specifically the abuse of it. So food IS more important. Now from a survival stand point water is your first concern then food.
I wish this sentence could be replaced with "Dryck är viktigare än mat", so that it was factually correct.
I agree with those who wrote than drink is more important than food.without food you can exist more days than without water.
The sentence makes sense but its factually incorrect. Drink is more important than food if you want to live. Lol :)
Well, it does not say for what it's more important. For the exports of sweden maybe food is more important. ^^
I said Food is more important than beverages and it marked my answer as incorrect... why?
"dryck" is singular, so it would be "Food is more important than beverage" but imo that doesn't make much sense in English, if it were "drycker" I think "beverages" would be acceptable.
Perhaps its actual meaning is more along the lines of: "Food is more important than booze" -- but I haven't tested to see if that is accepted. ;-)
being non-native EN, but with good and long experience with EN, I "feel" that something is wrong with just "drink" at the end.
"Eating is more important than drinking" sounds OK for me, even if sometimes that is not always true either, but it could have lead to less discussion.
- 37
Hugo, you are right that "eating" pairs well with "drinking". However, an equally valid pairing is "food" with "drink" (not "drinks").
In the above pairing, "drink" is being used as a singular collective noun. That usage is a bit elegant and "higher register" -- perhaps even a bit "19th century".
It would be unusual to come across it nowadays outside of the phrase "food and drink". Still, educated native English speakers would be familiar with it.
