Difference between sale and sales

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JT2010

#438117 Fri, 02 Nov 07 11:42 PM

From what I know (and someone please chime in to correct me if I'm wrong) both student and woman are function as adjectives, modifying club and union.

I would recommend, therefore, using "student math club" and "Woman Union" because adjectives can never be plural in English.

JT2010

Joined on Thu, Nov 1 2007

United States

New Member (20)

Difference between, Plurals

Hoa Thai

#438139 Sat, 03 Nov 07 01:39 AM

Hello,

I believe that we have been talking about compound noun, in which the preceded word could be singular or plural and acts as an adjective. I also believe that it is up to people, who want to convey their message / idea, to sensibly use whatever mode they want. Let us look at the compound nouns in questions, 'sale engineer' vs. 'sales engineer', to see if we can get their messages.

Sales Engineer - An engineer who is responsible for answering technical questions to sales department and clients. The key-idea is responsibility. Not often, a company or an engineer wants to convey a message to other people that s/he is responsible for one single item / product / client! Using singular noun seems to reduce his / her image; and no company wants to give such a title to their employees and in turn conveys poor company's image. Thus, 'sales engineer' is better than 'sale engineer' in that sense. However, 'sale engineer' should be okay if one wants to be playful or really has a good reason to express such an idea. To show the legitimacy of using either singular or plural noun as an adjective in the responsibile for meaning one more time, here are a few examples:

- Service vs. Services: UNICCO Service Company vs. BJ Services Company
- Product vs. Products: Colder Product Company vs. P&G Products Company, Product Manager vs. Products Manager

How about 'Student Math-Club' and 'Students Math-Club'?
Student Math-Club - A club organized for the students to study math. Here, the key-idea is not about responsibility but belonging (i.e., Students' Math-Club). Thus, it is more natural to use singular mode (less bearing and of course w/ fewer characters).

I hope that my two cents do not confuse the issue.
Best Regards,
Hoa Thai

Hoa Thai

Joined on Mon, Oct 15 2007

Vietnam

Contributing Member (1,100)

Best Regards - Hoa Thai

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Osee

#438190 Sat, 03 Nov 07 05:58 AM

But how about "teacherS unions" in the following sentence from Voice of American (http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/2007-09/2007-09-26-voa2.cfm)?

Attempts at merit pay for American teachers have failed in many cases because of resistance from teachers unions or budget cuts.

By Hoa Thai's logic below, it should be interpreted as the unions are responsible for teachers, right? But it could be possible that there exists a union consisting of teachers for communication of teaching skills or other purposes, so for such a union, it's name should be teacher union instead of teacherS union?

Hoa Thai wrote:
Hello,

I believe that we have been talking about compound noun, in which the preceded word could be singular or plural and acts as an adjective. I also believe that it is up to people, who want to convey their message / idea, to sensibly use whatever mode they want. Let us look at the compound nouns in questions, 'sale engineer' vs. 'sales engineer', to see if we can get their messages.

Sales Engineer - An engineer who is responsible for answering technical questions to sales department and clients. The key-idea is responsibility. Not often, a company or an engineer wants to convey a message to other people that s/he is responsible for one single item / product / client! Using singular noun seems to reduce his / her image; and no company wants to give such a title to their employees and in turn conveys poor company's image. Thus, 'sales engineer' is better than 'sale engineer' in that sense. However, 'sale engineer' should be okay if one wants to be playful or really has a good reason to express such an idea. To show the legitimacy of using either singular or plural noun as an adjective in the responsibile for meaning one more time, here are a few examples:

- Service vs. Services: UNICCO Service Company vs. BJ Services Company
- Product vs. Products: Colder Product Company vs. P&G Products Company, Product Manager vs. Products Manager

How about 'Student Math-Club' and 'Students Math-Club'?
Student Math-Club - A club organized for the students to study math. Here, the key-idea is not about responsibility but belonging (i.e., Students' Math-Club). Thus, it is more natural to use singular mode (less bearing and of course w/ fewer characters).

I hope that my two cents do not confuse the issue.
Best Regards,
Hoa Thai

Osee

Joined on Mon, Jan 8 2007

Canada

Regular Member (681)

Truths are hard to prove, rumors are easy to make.

Regards, Difference between, Nouns, Plurals, Singular nouns

Hoa Thai

#438214 Sat, 03 Nov 07 09:04 AM

Hi Osee,

Perhaps, I added more confussion than I wanted to when I commented about 'Student Math-Club'.

It is not the mode (singular vs. plural) that carries the meaning of belonging vs. that of responsibility. For example, a product manager (singular noun acting as an adjective) is responsible for one product line. It is the meaning / idea / message that an entity (person / group / organization / etc...) wants to convey. Therefore, you might find Teacher Union and Teachers Union are used in the names of many organizations.

Now, back to your comment about the meaning of Teachers Union to carry the responsibility connotation, using my logic; then I must say that my explanation was poorly presented and became an un-intended logic. So what is the difference between the two naming styles? I would venture to interpret that:
- Teacher Union is an organization for teachers without any distinction what sort of teachers they are.
- Teachers Union is an organization in which teachers could be classified into various groups.
In short, I feel the name Teachers Union has a grander connotation than that of Teacher Union, just like Sales Engineer convey bigger image than Sale Engineer. More importantly, I would like emphasize that the modifier in a compound noun could be either singular or plural. Semantically, the use of one mode might prevail over the other, but I don't know any grammar rule preventing us from using either mode.

Comments anyone?

Thanks,
Hoa Thai

P.S. As an ESL learner, I would appreciate if you all can help me refine my writings. I come to this site for learning and sharing. I believe that I can improve my skills quicker when you point out my mistakes. If you do feel that your help might de-focus the issue, please email me. Thanks in advance.

Hoa Thai