Addergoole: A Ghost Story - Chapter 8: Cynara

[aldersprig]

Chapter 8: Cynara
by Lyn Thorne-Alder

Monday, September 18, 2000 

Cynara had been the new student at more schools than she could count, in at least eight states, two provinces, and a territory.  None of them had ever been like this.

Of course, none of them had been full of fae.  That was mark one.  The horns, the tails, the cute snake-boy with the green hair and the chalk-white skin, the cuter-still dark-haired one with fire in his eyes and tattoos slinking across his bare chest.  The casual discussion in class of fae, of Daeva  - Jaya and Professor VanderLinden, of course – and Mara and Grigori – Luke and Director Avonmorea – and all of this other stuff that her father had only talked about on rare occasion when drunk.  

read on...

Comments

[thnidu]

• on rare occasion when drunk.
-> occasions

• shivving each other (Not like that one place
-> each other (not
> or
-> each other. (Not

[inventrix]

...hmm. That first one has me intrigued, because "on occasion" is fine. I could see it going either way. I wonder if there's an official call anywhere in a grammar guide on it?

[thnidu]

"On rare occasion" occurs, but only, indeed, on rare occasion: 392,000 by Google count, versus 32,700,000 for "on occasion": barely over 1% as often.

"On occasion", using singular "occasion" with no determiner or modifier, is an idiom. You don't hear "on times" (meaning "from time to time") but rather "at times". You get "on that occasion" and "on some occasions", which are normal grammatical constructions-- given that "on" is the preposition we use with "occasion(s)", just as we use "at" with "time(s)"-- but you don't see "on occasions"* without qualifier. "On occasion" is a frozen expression that doesn't serve as a model for variations like "on rare occasion".

* It does occur regularly with a following modifier, e.g., "on occasions of national celebration".

[inventrix]

"on rare occasion", as a further modification of a common colloquial phrase, would by simple common sense occur substantially less than the phrase "on occasion" and has nothing to do with whether or not the word "occasion" in the phrase should be singular or plural. In point of fact, the determining factor as to the grammatically correct form of the phrase is whether or not the insertion of the word "rare" into the colloquial phrase - which itself means rarely - is an intensifier of the phrase itself, or if the phrase is a literal description of occasions that are rare.

Without further research and on the basis of the data you have provided, however, I would posit that "on rare occasion" is in fact an intensified variant of the colloquial phrase and as such can be accepted as-is, as opposed to the literal interpretation of the words which would necessitate the word "occasion" to be pluralized.

[thnidu]

Hmmm... There's a good deal of merit in your argument. Yup. OK. "On rare occasion"