a girl/girls

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New2grammar

#376788 Fri, 08 Jun 07 07:41 PM

They fought like [a man/men].

They screamed like [a girl/girls].

Are both choices correct?

Thanks in advance

New2grammar

Joined on Tue, Nov 21 2006

Veteran Member (7,670)

Who wants to go sailing around the world with me?

Grammar Geek

#376790 Fri, 08 Jun 07 07:54 PM

With "they" it would sound very odd to use anything other than a plural.

Grammar Geek

Joined on Tue, Jan 10 2006

Pennsylvania, USA

Veteran Member (15,567)

Barbara, who answers in American English.

Plurals

New2grammar

#376804 Fri, 08 Jun 07 08:30 PM

So, the noun and the object must match in contexts that use the word like.

For example,

He/She worked like a dog.

They/We worked like dogs.

New2grammar

Nouns

Grammar Geek

#376827 Fri, 08 Jun 07 09:20 PM

It certainly sounds more natural to my ear that way.

Grammar Geek

Anonymous

#378993 Wed, 13 Jun 07 11:56 AM

Hi,

I think these are from the original poster's posts:

1. They fought like a dog. -- Not natural to you.

2. They work like a dog -- Not natural to you.

How are they different from this.

3. They should bring a pencil in case the teacher decides to give a test.

On a second look, the first and second sentences do look better, even to me, with the plural 'dog', but I cannot quite put my finger on the reason.

Anonymous

Plurals

New2grammar

#379009 Wed, 13 Jun 07 12:46 PM

If the subject is singular/plural, the object that describes the subject must also be in singular/plural.

For example,

They are men! => not man

She is a girl =>not girls

New2grammar

Plurals

Grammar Geek

#379050 Wed, 13 Jun 07 02:33 PM

Anonymous wrote:

3. They should bring a pencil in case the teacher decides to give a test.

This type of plural/singular agreement has been debated quite a bit on this forum, and there are no absolute answers. Logic tells you that "they" will not be sharing one pencil among them, so each person will bring his or her own pencil.

A related problem is "All of students who wanted to go on the trip raised their hands." Did they each raise two hands? Did they each raise a single hand, making hands plural? If you change it to "All the students raised their hand" that sounds silly - like there was one giant hand they collectively shared. Maybe it was a prop in the school play? "Each of the students who wanted to go raised his or her hand." Well, that's utterly unambiguous, if a bit wordy.

Anyway, you need to let logic, the requirement to avoid ambiguity, the desire to avoid sounding silly, and lastly, what genuinely sounds right guide your decision.

Grammar Geek

Plurals

Kooyeen

#379105 Wed, 13 Jun 07 03:58 PM

LOL, GG, and that seems simple to you?

Grammar Geek wrote:
Anyway, you need to let logic (is there logic in English?), the requirement to avoid ambiguity (is English not ambiguous?), the desire to avoid sounding silly (how do I know what sounds silly?), and lastly, what genuinely sounds right (yeah, lol, everything sounds right to me...) guide your decision.

For example if "They should bring a pencil in case the teacher decides to give a test" is ok and logic tells you that each person brings a pencil, why on earth does "All of the student raised their hand" sound silly, considering that logic tells you even more clearly that they don't share a giant hand?

I think we would need to use the singular or plural at arndom in those cases...
But I thought of a new "theory" because I wanted to solve this problem, I'd like to show it to you all and hear what you think:

I think it all depends on "specificity" and "generality". Specificity suggests the plural, generality suggests the singular.
Specificity depends on the use of definite articles and possessive pronouns or on whether we are describing something specific or not.
Generality depends on the use of indefinite artcles, on whether we are talking in general, etc.

They all raised their hands. (plural, specificity because of "their")
They all raised a hand. (singular, generality because of the article "a")
They all brought a pencil and a piece of paper for the test. (singular, generality because of the indefinite article "a")
They all brought the application forms to apply for the job. (plural, specificity because of the definite article "the")

Thinking [*-)]

...ok, I'm stuck. My theory sucks, I think this stuff is too complicated...
"Elephants have long trunks", why not "Elephants have a long trunk", since it's a general statement?
"All people who live in Beverly Hills have small swimming pools in their back yards"... how about the singular? Using the plural, it sounds like they each have more than one swimming pool...

I think I'll never understand. Maybe there's only one way to understand, but I'll tell you later.

Kooyeen

Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005

Italy

Senior Member (3,972)

If you don't have a sense of humor already, it's about time you buy one.

Articles, Grammar, Plurals, Possessives, Nouns, Pronouns, Indefinite articles, Definite articles

New2grammar

#379109 Wed, 13 Jun 07 04:05 PM

Kooyeen, I almost bought your theory until you got stuck. Smile [:)] I was so excited. But now I'm back to my original way which is to memorize on a case by case basis.

New2grammar

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