"for many a traveler"

Hej wszystkim,
wypełniałam ćwiczenie z ksiażki V. Evans CPE Use of English i powstało mi coś takiego "for many a traveler". Nigdy nie spotkałam się z takim ciągiem słów, gdzie jest najpiewr coś sugerujące liczbę mnogą, dużą ilość a potem "a" i rzeczownik w sg. Czy znacie inne takie przykłady?

many a = more than a few

spotkać się można z tym od czasu do czasu

jeśli lubisz gramatykę, to poczytaj sobie o predeterminers

jeśli nie lubisz, to niewykluczone, że savage coś Ci tu napisze

I've been there many a time

eva74 dzięki, właśnie lubię takie zakręcone, rzadko spotykane bzdety, a na savage też liczę :-)

jeszcze jest opcja, ze jak ktos nie uzywa znakow interpunkcyjnych to moga mu wyjsc takie dwuznacznosci:
For many a traveller... (Dla niejednego podroznika...) a chcial po prostu napisac For many, a traveller... (Dla wielu, podroznik...)

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_many_be_followed_with_singular_noun

For many an ardent lover......finds a demon in his bed instead of the beauty he married
For many a woman marries a man in haste....

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan.
Many a little boy has wanted to become a fireman.
Bad weather has brought many a farmer to the brink of disaster over the past decade.

What’s been said would pretty near exhaust this ‘discourse analysis’ of such ‘legalized concord violation’, I believe. -:) You see, ‘they first ( those stately ‘four-eyes’ medieval doyens :) set that concord rules and condemn us for any possible ‘tampering’ with them but then they themselves ‘shuffle’ them in defiance of some other indeterminate principles. :)
That was a kind of ‘metaphorical digression ‘ on my part , befitting such an upright, hard-working and yet chromosomically unfledged syntax ‘traveler’. hahaha

But getting back to this ‘mess’.

Merriam-Webster quotes Quirk as follows :
( how dare they : )

“The principle of notional concord accounts for the common use of a singular with subjects
that are plural noun phrases of quantity or measure. The entity expressed by the noun phrase is viewed as a single unit:
Many a member has protested against the proposal. [3]
Although the subject is notionally plural in [3], the singular is preferred because member
is analysed as head of the noun phrase. "

So, in other words, semantically, we ‘know’ that our ‘NP’ traveler is plural and as a plural succedent of a plural quantifier ‘many’ ( here as a predeterminer because ‘a’ is a central determiner) it should be in perfect grammatical concord with its antecedent but it’s not because this ‘damn’ traveler is seen grammatically ( by those respected fossils mentioned above ) as a.. hmm ‘swinging single psychopath ? ’haha
Other than above, it’s really hard to say why ‘many’ actually permits single concord here.
Maybe because of some prosodic weight to emphasize that ‘head’?
But what I’m pretty sure about is that English is a crazy language and I hate it :))

p.s. Don’t be confused about my ‘somewhat’ excessive proclivity for using such quirky tropes. You will soon get used to it.:)

savage-
>>>>But what I’m pretty sure about is that English is a crazy language and I hate it :))
...There's such a thin veil between love and hate - I'm pretty sure that secretly you absolutely love it

Absolutely -:) dear .. I hasten to add.