(This is like the confusion between “fewer” and “less.”) A few strands of white hair relate to number, since strands of hair are countable. If that is the case, then the writer is confusing number with amount. Here, most probably, the writer meant to say that there were a few strands of white hair mixed in with the strands of red hair. The use of “tinge” here is an example of what is known as “semantic slippage.” That is, the meaning of a word slips away from the original meaning and the word begins to be used loosely and carelessly, with some other meaning in mind. It is impossible to know exactly what the writer meant. That is to say, the word “tinge” is a poor choice of word for this context.
However, the sentence is rather strange, since it is difficult to imagine hair that has the colour red with a tinge of white, since adding white to red turns the red into pink, and a little bit of white would make the red a little bit pink The sentence is a poorly written. As it is written, the sentence is focusing on the colour of the hair rather than the hair itself.
There was a small amount of white ness mixed in with the red ness. The sentence you quote means that the redness of her hair was not completely red, that is, not pure red. Does that mean some of her hair is completely white?Ī tinge is a small amount, usually of colour, but it could be used for other things as well, in a metaphorical sense (for example, a tinge of sadness).
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