[Idiom] SYMPATHY

[Migg]

"He has few sympathies for that political group."

Is the phrase "few sympathies" ok?

 

[SoothingDave]

He has little sympathy...

 

[Migg]

so "few sympathies" is ok under some circumstances?

 

[Migg]

checking....

 

[azkad]

If I refer to few sympathies in IELTS writing module, will that be not an error?

 

[BobK]

If I refer to few sympathies in IELTS writing module, will that be not an error?

The British National Corpus has 68 examples of 'little sympathy' and none of 'few sympathies'. Gilnetter's acceptance of your version suggests there might be a Br vs Am distinction, but I can't check in COCA at the moment.

Whatever the case may be, I wouldn't advise using it in an IELTS exam.

b

 

[SoothingDave]

Just for the record, I don't think "few sympathies" is wrong. I was giving the more common saying.

 

[Raymott]

Just for the record, I don't think "few sympathies" is wrong. I was giving the more common saying.

I wouldn't use it.
Can you have one sympathy for something? Is it possible to have two sympathies, but not three, for a group?

 

[Rover_KE]

I don't think few sympathies is acceptable, either.

Rover

 

[Migg]

But when someone dies, it seems that people would say "our sympathies are with you.....", not "our sympathy is with you.....". So semi-countable "sympathies" is stronger than uncountable "sympathy"?

 

[Raymott]

But when someone dies, it seems that people would say "our sympathies are with you.....", not "our sympathy is with you.....". So semi-countable "sympathies" is stronger than uncountable "sympathy"?

Maybe, but we also offer our congratulations. We don't give a certain number of congratulations depending on how impressed we are.
In any case, you can have one congratulation from me for thinking of that example, and an extra one to make it grammatical!

 

[sunsunmoon]

Do you say "My sympathy is with you" to mean "My sympathies are with you"?

 

[BobK]

And then there's kudos, but we don't talk about those ;-)

b
PS: note for the confused: kudos is singular, as is pathos and a lot of other words derived from Greek.