Many a man ?

[crazYgeeK]

Hi,
Can "many a man" refer to both male and female people ?
Are there expressions like "many a woman", "many a boy", "many a girl", "many a house"...?
I have the sentence "Many a man has lost his life in the attempt".
Can I replace "Many a man has" by "Many people have" without changing the meaning ?
Why can we use "his" here ?
Maybe I doesn't express my questions well.
Please!
Thank you very much !

 

[Rover_KE]

Hi,
Can "many a man" refer to both male and female people ? No.
Are there expressions like "many a woman", "many a boy", "many a girl", "many a house"...? Yes.
I have the sentence "Many a man has lost his life in the attempt".
Can I replace "Many a man has" by "Many people have" without changing the meaning ? Yes, but you have to continue '...lost their lives...'
Thank you very much !

Rover

 

[shoaib 1]

Hi,
Can "many a man" refer to both male and female people ?
Are there expressions like "many a woman", "many a boy", "many a girl", "many a house"...?
I have the sentence "Many a man has lost his life in the attempt".
Can I replace "Many a man has" by "Many people have" without changing the meaning ?
Why can we use "his" here ?
Maybe I doesn't express my questions well.
Please!
Thank you very much !

Yes, all these expressions do exist.'Many a' may be called a phrase in which the last word 'a' is defining.So it takes a singular verb and possessive. 'Many', 'a many' and 'a great many' are the expressions which take plural verb and possessive.
Yes, you can change 'many a man has' to 'many men have' without changing the meaning