Examining the problems in the use of the singular and the plural in English.

I HAVE deliberately coined the above tongue-twisting title for the tricky topic of singular and plural in English.

Consider a recent excerpt (Star/StarBiz, June 17, p.1), where I underline the points of contention and insert my proposed correction (italicized and put in brackets), as follows: “... each of this (these) new generation aircraft which uses (use) 15% less fuel is priced at US$80.8mil and MAS being a long-term customer may be get (maybe gets OR may get) discounts. ... MAS also plans to order 30 aircraft for its low-cost unit Firefly but details of when it will make that order is (are) unclear.”

The first sentence seemingly exhibits uncertainty about the grammatical number of the noun “aircraft”. The phrase “each of” indicates one individual out of many, in this case “aircraft”, which in this context is plural even though it has the singular form. In that plural context, then, the demonstrative adjective “this” should be amended to “these”. Furthermore, “aircraft” being in the plural would govern the plural verb “use” instead of the singular “uses”.

In the second sentence, the coordinate clause has “details” (plural) as the subject, which would therefore govern the plural verb “are” instead of the singular “is”, regardless of the distance separating subject and verb.

The above example encapsulates one inescapable feature in English (and in other languages such as Latin) – that nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs must accord with one another. It is the noun or other substantive (pronoun, gerund and to-infinitive) that determines the grammatical number in a sentence, and other parts of speech agree accordingly.

This article outlines some instances where the singular and the plural forms of nouns, substantives, etc. may confuse, and to note the special ways in which these are used.

The plural of nouns

In the main, nouns form the plural by adding the suffix -s (boy/boys) or -es (mango/mangoes, bus/buses). In addition, there are, in English, many unusual plural forms, e.g. knife/knives, mouse/mice, man/men, child/children, ox/oxen.

The so-called loan words, i.e. words of foreign origin, may retain the plural form as in the original language, such as those from Greek (crisis/crises, meninx/meninges, phenomenon/phenomena, stigma/stigmata), Latin (alumnus/alumni, alumna/alumnae, bacterium/bacteria), Italian (libretto/libretti, paparazzo/paparazzi), French (bureau/bureaux, tableau/tableaux), Hebrew (cherub/cherubim, kibbutz/kibbutzim), Arabic (mujahid/mujahidin) and so on.

Uncountable nouns

Some nouns can be measured but not counted. It must be noted that, even then, some uncountable nouns may be used in the plural form. The plural of such nouns as water and sky occurs in literary or fanciful usage (the waters of the Mediterranean; under starry skies above).

Nouns with unusual forms

“You got hear the new today?” “The good, my order one, got arrive awready.” One hardly hears such expressions, except perhaps among new learners of English. News and goods are nouns for which there is no singular form. However, news is singular (no news is good news), while goods is plural (the goods that I ordered have arrived).

In such context, let us note some further examples of singular/plural complexity: (1) nouns that are singular in form and use, and have no plural form, e.g. equipment, furniture, merchandise; (2) nouns that are singular in form but are plural in use, e.g. kith, kin, swine, vermin; (3) nouns that are singular in form but are used as singular or plural, e.g. deer, offspring, sheep; (4) nouns that are plural in form but are treated as singular and used only as such, e.g. crossroads, headquarters, shambles, tidings; (5) nouns that are plural in form but singular in meaning, and can form the actual plural by adding the suffix -es, e.g. summons (singular) and summonses (plural); and (6) nouns that are plural in form and meaning, and are never used in the singular, e.g. arrears, smithereens, tatters.

Nouns with different singular and plural meanings

Then there are the nouns where the singular and the plural forms have slightly or entirely different meanings. For example, folk refers to people in general or people in a community (the folk at Tanjong Rambutan), whereas folks is a more intimate term, referring to members of one’s own family (he reminisced about the old folks at home); and desert is an arid, desolate area of land (there is scant vegetation in the desert), whereas deserts, pronounced “dizzerts”, is what one deserves as reward or punishment (he finally received his just deserts).

My fellow-learners may entertain themselves by differentiating between the singular and the plural in the following pairs: air/airs, damage/damages, due/dues, manner/manners, moral/morals, premise/premises.

The singular of verbs

A base verb is plural. Forming the singular of verbs is as easy as tagging on the suffix -s or its variant -es to the base verb (walk/walks; go/goes; do/does) – except that: (1) the singular of the verb “to have” is has, not haves, and (2) the singular of the verb “to be” has unusual forms (see under Personal Pronouns, below). Such formations apply to lexical verbs.

With auxiliary verbs, there are some differences. Lexical verbs serving as auxiliaries follow the normal formations (she does go for a walk vs they do go for a walk; he has completed his task vs they have completed their tasks). On the other hand, auxiliaries (e.g. shall, should, will, would, may, might, can, could) that are defective – that is, they do not have the full complement of verb-forms – are used without change for the singular and the plural (e.g. singular he can run; likewise the plural they can run).

Personal pronouns

The personal pronouns singular and plural (first person I/we, second person you/you, third person he~she~it/they) pose some difficulty. With the usual verbs, the first person and the second person pronouns, whether singular or plural, take the plural verb (I/we run, you/you run), whereas the third person pronoun follows the usual rule, the singular governing the singular verb and the plural the plural verb (he~she~it runs vs they run).

The verb “to be” is unique in having special forms for use with the personal pronoun.

For the simple present tense, the verb-forms for the singular/plural are as underlined in the following examples: I am vs we are; you (singular) are, likewise you (plural) are; he~she~it is vs they are; and for the simple past tense I was vs we were; you (singular), likewise you (plural) were; he~she~it was vs they were.

The verb “to be” retains the same special forms when used as auxiliaries, as in the continuous tenses (e.g. I am/was reading, you are/were mumbling, etc.)

Other substantives

The gerund is always singular, and it invariably governs a singular verb (running one mile is a cinch for her, but walking two miles is too much for her).

The to-infinitive, when used as a substantive, is singular (to err is human) even though it may take a plural object (to make one mistake is carelessness, but to commit three mistakes is unforgiveable).

Demonstrative pronouns

The demonstrative pronouns this (plural these) and that (plural those) must accord in number with the associated nouns. Thus: (1) This is the book that you wanted (this, singular, to accord with book, singular); (2) the Forensics Department determined that the remains were those of the kidnapped victim (those, plural, to agree with remains, plural).

Demonstrative adjectives

Demonstrative adjectives are unlikely to cause difficulty in adjective-noun concordance; thus: this book, these tables, that house, those trees.

Phrasal adjectives

Phrasal adjectives, particularly those that combine a singular word with a plural, may cause some difficulty.

Note the singular or the plural in the following examples: (1) One of the boys is absent; (2) A great many children have succumbed to the epidemic; (3) Many a housewife has fallen victim to the con man.

Subjects comprising nouns in association

There are some simple rules. Nouns joined together by the conjunction and form a plural subject (a book and a pen were on the table), and the rule applies even in an inverted construction (there were a book and a pen on the table). [Note, however, that an and-phrase that constitutes a single idea governs a singular verb; e.g. time and tide waits for no man.]

Nouns linked by the conjunction or govern a singular or a plural verb depending on the number of the second element (the table or the chairs are to be disposed of; the chairs or the table is to be disposed of), and the rule of proximity attraction also holds for pronouns governing the verb “to be” (he or you are mad; you or he is mad).

For subjects comprising nouns or pronouns linked by one-word prepositions (besides, plus) or even phrasal prepositions (together with, in addition to, etc.), the verb agrees with the first element, the other element being treated as being in parenthesis (he, together with two companions, is going to climb that mountain).

However, the situation with the phrase as well as is the subject of some controversy. Should we say “he as well as his sister were here” OR “he as well as his sister was here”? In other words, is as well as a phrasal conjunction meaning “and” (thus making the subject plural) OR a phrasal preposition meaning “besides” (thus making the subject singular)?

According to Fowler (H.W. Fowler, 1977. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Second edition revised by Sir Ernest Gowers. Oxford University Press), “it is time for someone to come to the rescue of the phrase as well as, which is being cruelly treated. Grammatically, the point is that as well as is a conjunction and not a preposition.”

On the other hand, Partridge (E. Partridge, 1973. Usage and Abusage. Penguin Books) said that the phrase is often ambiguous, but he made no prescription.

Curme (G.O. Curme, 1947. English Grammar. Barnes & Noble Books) was more definite: “If a subject in the singular is associated by means of with, together with, as well as ... with other words ..., the subject is now usually in the singular, often in contrast to older usage”; and he gave the example: “The girl, as well as the boys, has learned to ride.”

Let us consider the example on the basis of the prescription by Vallins (G.H. Vallins, 1951, 1968. Good English. London: Pan Books Ltd).

The phrase set out by commas “is in parenthesis ..., and the first half of the subject, which is singular, determines the number of the verb.

“If a writer wishes to stress the plurality of his subject he will omit the commas and, of course, bring the verb into agreement.” Vallins’ prescription seems to be the norm for now.

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