Re: ''essays book'' or ''essay book''

Kooyeen — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:46:27 GMT

Yankee wrote:
Right. Generally speaking, only singular nouns are used as adjectives to modify another noun. As with most "rules", however, there are some exceptions, but unfortunately I can't think of any at the moment.

Hi,
I often have trouble with that. I think it's only true for nouns that are kind of "fixed" or "accepted" in everyday English. Like shoe store: everybody knows what it is, right? It's the standard way you call that kind of thing, that kind of store.

But are you know posting in the grammar rule section or the grammar rules section? I'd say the latter, rules. You click on the options button to see what options are available, don't you? I wouldn't say option button.
I don't know the reason, I guess it's as I said, these are not "standard" common nouns used to refer to things everyone knows. They are just nouns with another noun in front, which act as a lable.

So let's try this...
You say it's essay book, not essays book. I guess it's a "standard" way to refer to that book. What if I had a book full of something else? Like suspects? The police might have one... do they say: Hey Bob, gimme the suspect book or ...gimme the suspects book? I'd say "suspects", because "suspect book" is not a common fixed word.

What do you guys think?

Re: ''essays book'' or ''essay book''

Yankee — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:33:51 GMT

Right. Generally speaking, only singular nouns are used as adjectives to modify another noun. As with most "rules", however, there are some exceptions, but unfortunately I can't think of any at the moment.

Re: When to use 'is' and 'are' has caused an argument in the office

paco2004 — Sat, 11 Dec 2004 03:00:34 GMT

Essay on The Collective Noun by Sophie Johnson

Traditionally, the noun that names a collective is considered to be singular. Being singular, the verbial that denotes its act is also singular:
(1) The family prays every evening.
(2) Australia is playing against Portugal in the final round.
(3) The government is going to propose tough legislation in this matter.
Yet we regularly hear and read 'the government are', 'the family are', and in sports commentaries, even 'Australia are'. What, one might well ask, is going on? Is contemporary English denying the existence of the collective noun? This state of things is particularly bemusing for learners of English. That is little wonder, for the equivalent in their native tongues of 'my government are' is impossibly ungrammatical. The English, they tend to conclude, are disturbingly sloppy with their grammar.

But are we? Or is it that we are left free to use our language as we think reasonable, while everyone else is constrained to toe a pedant line? Unlike most other language areas, ours is not presided over by guardians who legislate upon its use. And that's just as well, in our estimate. For what, to take the case to hand, would be the good in our being ordered to respect the singular-noun status of the collective noun? Would respecting it add even a scrap to the lucidity of the meanings we make? Besides, when we talk about a 'family' that is doing something, or about a 'government' that is doing something, we envisage several people engaged in an activity. So why a singular verbial to pretend that only one person is doing it?

Such a line of argument is handy. But it won't explain all. There is still this sort of thing: We treat 'nation' as a collective noun:
(4) A nation is valiant when it defends itself.
But we treat 'people' as a plural noun:
(5)A people are valiant when they defend themselves.
We do this even though the two expressions are equi-meaning. We just do, that's all!

Nevertheless, what is 'a', the indefinite article that normally goes with singular nouns ('a dog', 'a shovel'.) doing before the plural noun 'people'? At this stage we might explain kindly to anyone who wants to know that the English article is something we use as we do because we know how to use it. Everyone else, sadly, does not.

Other oddities assail us even as we wriggle out of the sticky mire that 'a people are' landed us in. In this business, no news is good news. Now, hold it right there! 'News', apparently a plural noun, 'is'? Oh dear. There's no making light of this one. 'News', despite its plural form, takes the singular copula 'is', not the plural 'are'!

As if this were not vexation enough, there is the prissy business of 'the media are'. Why not 'the media is'? The fact that the Latin word 'media' is the plural form of 'medium' should surely not deter us from using the singular copula with it. The plural form of 'news' did not. But then, 'news' does not have a singular form: We always hear the latest bit of news, never the latest bit of new. 'Media' has a singular form: 'medium'. But that is a spiritual person, not newspapers and radio and television.

Are we getting somewhere, willy-nilly, having so far decided upon a policy of concluding nothing much? We probably are â into another mire: 'Constabulary' is a group noun, has a singular form and its act is denoted as a singular verbial:
(6) The constabulary needs to be free of political control.
A true collective noun!â one might celebrate it. But not for long. Its synonym, `the police', is a plural noun:
(7) The police need to be free of political control.
So why is one name a collective noun and its synonym a plural noun? All is lost!
What? What's this? 'All is? 'All are', surely? 'All' is a plural noun! But wait:
(8) All is lost if the cause is lost.
(9) All are lost if particular things or people are lost.
'All' both is and is not a collective noun, and it is and is not a plural noun. Where are we now in the collective noun/singular verbial showdown?

This sort of perambulation leaves us in no doubt that the collective noun/singular verb usage is in disarray in English. Can it be rationalised or is it now too late? In any case, how would we rationalise? What would happen, for instance, if a rule such as: 'Any noun that names a group as an abstraction is a collective noun and must take a singular verb' were forced upon English usage? Under such a regime we could say that:
(10) A government is good only as a democratic construct.
(11) This Government are doing a good job.
are grammatically proper. But then, we can do this anyway, if we want. And if not, not. Legislation, on the other hand, would deny us the latter alternative. We, being English speakers, do not take kindly to legislation on usage. Nor should we. For once it begins, where does it stop?

Sensible after-thought on a stand in support of the contemporary open-season on the collective noun is this: Tradition always has respectability. It also has clout, because traditionalists tend to out-number rebels and because traditional behavior always has connotations of refinement. To hazard an analogy: One can make meaning creditably without respecting the collective noun/singular verbial, just as one can eschew knife and fork yet dine well on steak. But doing either, what does one lose in polish? Writers should consider respecting collective nouns for reason alone that failure to do so is not appreciated universally. Indeed, many see that failure an ignorance.

Collecive Noun by S. Johnson

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Re: ''essays book'' or ''essay book''

Re: ''essays book'' or ''essay book''

Re: When to use 'is' and 'are' has caused an argument in the office