jack112  +  351311 Sun, 15 Apr 07 11:44 PM Is this correct? All my 3 items are plural. 1. The cluster interconnect consists of three hardware components: adapters, junctions, and cables. jack112 Joined on Thu, Jul 22 2004 Regular Member 715 Plurals

	Grammar Geek  +  351316 Sun, 15 Apr 07 11:53 PM This looks okay to me. There are muliple adapaters, junctions, and cables in each interconnection, as you say, right? That's exactly what you've written. Grammar Geek Joined on Tue, Jan 10 2006 Veteran Member 19,650 Barbara, who answers in American English. My housekeeping skills attest to the truth of the second law of thermodynamics: Left to themselves, things get more and more random!

	jack112  +  352144 Tue, 17 Apr 07 05:34 PM But don't I have more than three hardware components with the 's' at the end of each hardware component? 1. The cluster interconnect consists of three hardware components: adapters, junctions, and cables. jack112

	Kooyeen  +  352155 Tue, 17 Apr 07 05:53 PM  Jack112 wrote: But don't I have more than three hardware components with the 's' at the end of each hardware component? 1. The cluster interconnect consists of three hardware components: adapters, junctions, and cables. Hi Jack, that question is interesting. Confusing, actually, isn't it? I believe that sentence is not ok in theory, but in practice no one will object. Because... ...if the cluster interconnect consists of adapters, junctions, and cables, then it is not only made up of three components. It's made up of more than three components, but they are all part of three kinds of components: adapters, junctions, cables. So, although I think your sentence should be "The cluster interconnect consists of three (different) kinds of hardware components: adapters, junctions, and cables," I also think that leaving out "(different) kinds" wouldn't be a great mistake, especially in speech. The missing words would be understood and the exact meaning of the sentence doesn't change at all. Hope I'm not mistaken, though, hehe Kooyeen Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005 Italy Senior Member 4,966 Parental Advisory / Explicit Posts