Month: September 2018

Tricky plurals

I am sure you remember being told that the plural of sheep is sheep and the plural of deer is deer. Both words remain unchanged when they become plural. No s or es is added to the singular. The singular is sheep and the plural sheep. You can have one sheep or you can have more than one, probably twenty, and they are still sheep.

Singular            Plural

sheep                   sheep

deer                     deer

These two examples are well known and now let us consider some other nouns which may seem to be plural but do not have a plural form .

Luggage and baggage

If you are flying to Sao Paola for business and you are taking just one carry-on bag, then that is your luggage. If you like to change into different outfits and you packed several suits and shoes requiring you to take five bags that is still your luggage. Here again you see that there is only the singular form luggage. The same is true for the word baggage which has the same meaning as luggage. It is incorrect to try and make luggage or baggage plural by adding an s. There no such words as luggages or baggages.

Examples:

I like to travel with only essential items so my luggage usually consists of just one bag.

Upon returning from vacation the family had so much luggage that we had to get two carts to accommodate all the bags.

Gear and equipment

When the word gear is used as a noun to mean equipment or clothes used for a particular purpose then its plural takes the same form as the singular. It is often used in this form in sports or with reference to sporting equipment and clothing.

The word equipment is also used with one form for singular and plural. Never add an s to equipment even when the equipment consists of a variety of items. You can say equipment, pieces of equipment or items of equipment but it remains as equipment.

Examples:

In order to carry my bat along with the rest of my cricket gear I needed a special bag.

Dad always inspected his fishing gear before he set off on any fishing trip.

Furniture  

Although furniture is used to refer to several items it cannot be used with an s. Do not attempt to create the word furnitures. You can refer to one table, or four chairs. The individual items can have plural forms but when regarded together as a unit they are called furniture.

Mass Nouns

These nouns luggage, baggage, gear (when used to mean apparatus), equipment and furniture are mass nouns or uncountable nouns. These nouns treat the items as one unit and not as separate and distinct parts. In other words you cannot say one luggage, two luggages and so on. You also cannot use the indefinite article, that is a or an with mass nouns. In other words you cannot say a luggage or an equipment. These nouns have one form only and even when they suggest several items the form does not change.

Here is a definition of a mass noun given by Collins English Dictionary.

“a noun that refers to an extended substance rather than to each of a set of isolable objects, as for example, water as opposed to lake. In English when used indefinitely they are characteristically preceded by some rather than a or an; they do not have normal plural forms”

Isolable means capable of being isolated or separated

Familiar mass nouns include sugar, water and sand.

So no matter how large the pile of bags you travel with it is all baggage.

photo credit: scottnj Emotional Baggage via photopin (license)

 

 

Criteria or criterion

 

There is some confusion about the use of the word criteria. Let’s clear it up by giving some information about the word. The Oxford Dictionary defines criterion as, “ a principle or standard by which something may be judged or decided”. Criteria is the plural form of the word criterion. The word criterion comes from the Greek word kriterion.

The confusion arises because some persons tend to use the plural form of the word criteria as singular. Here is an example of such usage. The main criteria for giving a loan is the ability of the borrower to repay. There is only one standard of judgement that is mentioned so the singular form criterion should be used. You should then take care when writing or speaking to use the correct form of the word whether singular or plural. To avoid confusion then remember to use criterion when you refer to only one “principle or standard” of judgement and use criteria when you refer to several standards.

Examples:

The performance of the divers was judged on four criteria.

Reliability was the major criterion used to select my new intern.  

 

Is data singular or plural?

The usage of data is also an area for clarification. The word data is actually plural and its singular is datum. Sticking strictly to grammar rules we should treat data as plural.

The collected data indicate that the spider population is increasing.

However the usage of data has been changing. Over time the word data is increasingly being used as a singular noun.

The data I gathered from the survey is stored on my computer.

According to the English Oxford Living Dictionaries data is used as a plural in “specialised scientific fields” but is treated as a mass noun in “modern, non-scientific use”. A mass noun takes a singular verb.

According to the Oxford information on its usage data though plural in form is generally used with a singular verb.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary recognises that data can be used as “a plural noun (like earnings) taking a plural verb and also as an abstract mass noun (like information) taking a singular verb. Merriam-Webster’s advice differs slightly from that of the English Oxford Living Dictionaries. While the English Oxford Living Dictionary indicates that data as plural is only used in the scientific field, Merriam- Webster does not confine the plural use to the scientific field.

I summarise and advise that you can use data as either plural or as singular. My further advice is to be consistent with the usage you choose to adopt in any one piece of writing.