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Plural-meaning nouns

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Latest post Tue, Aug 5 2008 11:47 PM by Mister Micawber. 1 replies.
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Anonymous  +  551316 Tue, 05 Aug 08 10:36 PM
Hi,
I have some what I think are plural-meaning nouns and they are membership, youth, crowd and people. The trouble is I am seeing them in plural sometimes.
Can you help me on that? I think I can somewhat  conceive a situation in which a plural of 'crowd' might be used as in where you are conceiving serveral groups of people but the use of other words escapes my understanding. I also think I can understand the reationale for the use of the plural version of the word 'people' too.

But these?

memberships? youths?

Also, when can you put the word 'all' before a plural-meaning word like 'host'? I think 'host' is countable, eg, a host.
 
all the starry host
Anonymous
,
Mister Micawber  +  551345 Tue, 05 Aug 08 11:47 PM
.
These words function differently.

Youth and membership can be countable or uncountable nouns:

Youth is carefree.
There is a youth / There are three youths standing on the corner.
Membership is free.
I have had a membership / They have had their memberships since 1984.

Crowd and host, like group and team, can be considered as a single unit or as a lot of people.  All can modify both countables and uncountables:

(All) the crowd/group/team/host is restless.
(All) the crowd/group/team/host are arguing among themselves.

People is the plural of person, but is singular when discussing ethnicities:

There is a person / There are three people in the closet.
The peoples of India are legion.
.
Mister Micawber
Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004
Yokohama
Veteran Member 30,773
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'
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