jää in the plural

[Satish]

täytyy varoa heikkoja jäitä - Should I interpret this in the same way as "To test the waters?" - ie. "To watch out for the ices?"

Upto now, I thought material nouns such as jää were purely in the singular...

[Mark I.]

Yap.

[EP]

I thought material nouns such as jää were purely in the singular

Well, yes. But no. You say juon maitoa. But when there are two or several jars of milk on the table you say pane maidot jääkaappiin. They are countable. So varokaa heikkoja jäitä could just as easily be

varokaa heikkoa jäätä

, but in plural it sort of implicates that in some parts of the lake ice is thin while in some other parts it may stll carry. Or in this lake ice doesn´t carry but in the neighbouring lake it does.

[Satish]

I think the explanation on multiple lakes and the need to keep testing does it for me. Very topical and apt for this time of year!!! Thanks

[Jukka Aho]

täytyy varoa heikkoja jäitä - Should I interpret this in the same way as "To test the waters?" - ie. "To watch out for the ices?"

Upto now, I thought material nouns such as jää were purely in the singular...

There isn’t much difference between

Varo heikkoa jäätä!

and

Varo heikkoja jäitä!

Both are general warnings about walking on ice when it’s thin and can’t necessarily support your weight. The pluralized form perhaps emphasizes the idea that there may be several different, separate ice-covered bodies of water, or that areas of thin ice may exist in several different places over a single body of water.



Note that jää can also be pluralized when you’re talking about ice cubes in drinks. (Laitetaanko jäitä? Otatko jäitä? etc. – jäät being used as short for jääpalat.)
 

[EP]

One thing really, really irritates me every summer. Those roadside announcements that say MANSIKKAA...

[Jukka Aho]

One thing really, really irritates me every summer. Those roadside announcements that say MANSIKKAA...

“MANSI- JA MUSTIKOITA”

But I don’t see MANSIKKAA or MUSTIKKAA or VADELMAA as being wrong. It just emphasizes that you’re selling (and thinking about) them by volume or weight (liters or kilograms) instead of dealing with them on the level of individual (countable) berries.

[Aquila]

Using the singular form to talk about berries is a typical Nordic usage. In many ways Finnish behaves as the nordic languages, but the influence has not necessarily allways gone from Nordic to finnish.

For example the "swedish" word for "boy", "pojke", is of finnish origin.

Using the word for ice in the plural in however not Nordic.

[Timbeh]

Using the singular form to talk about berries is a typical Nordic usage. In many ways Finnish behaves as the nordic languages, but the influence has not necessarily allways gone from Nordic to finnish.

For example the "swedish" word for "boy", "pojke", is of finnish origin.

Using the word for ice in the plural in however not Nordic.

The concept of "Nordic" includes Finland. If you're segregating Finland from the cultural and linguistic area of the three kingdoms of Norway, Denmark and Sweden then you're probably referring to Scandinavia. Finland is Nordic but not part of Scandinavia. And by the way, what makes you so certain that Finnish would've adopted the usage of singular form in this context (berries) from the Scandinavian languages?

[kalmisto]

"jäitä hattuun" : http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4it%C3%A4_hattuun

No-one says "jäätä hattuun".

[sammy]

Which reminds me of...

"tässähän tämä menee, jäitä poltellessa" - another Nordic-tinged expression (referring to that feeling you occasionally get when nothing happens the way you'd like it... but you just have to sit it out)

[kalmisto]

sammy

http://blogit.yleradio1.yle.fi/aristote ... taauittais

[Pursuivant]