as words become integrated into every day life the trend is for the patterns of the "new" language to take over, in terms of both spelling, morphology (endings) and pronunciation. Forums is becoming the standard now, as is medias. As for

you have it correct. if it were only one monumental wave (that is, if waves were singular), it would be hammers. however, then you would have the logical inconsistency of a single wave being relentless. -Andrew

Yes, one must know when the word in question is plural. The three basic rules for apostrophe usage cover most situations: (1) singular - add 's (2) plural ending in s - add ' (3) plural not ending in s - add 's

You could say "Ben's and Tommy's businesses" if Ben and Tommy each have their own business: Ben's and Tommy's businesses, The Cat's Meow and The Cuddly Canine, are both very successful.

They are different constructions. In the first, the idiom "a piece of cake" could be replaced by the word "easy", and so no agreement with the subject is needed.

CalifJim wrote: I'd say The jobs were a piece of cake . (They were both easy.) And I'd say either jumped out of their skin or skins . CJ Thanks CaliJim. So it seems there is no rule concerning this??

Thanks a lot! That was definetely what I needed to clarify (that "the engineer" cannot be referring to a group). Best regards from the hot and sunny Spain...

I'd take "game one" as a compound noun: "game-one". In which case you could simply stick an S on the end: Cf. 1. Ten Mister Qs - ok. 2. Ten Misters Q - dodgy. MrP

I am a native English speaker and I find furniture, luggage, and news are happy with the singular verb. Police can be plural. Fish and sheep can be either. Scissors and pants are plural.

the plural for leaf is leaves the plural for beef is beeves (?)  the plural for deaf is deaf the plural for motif is motifs what's the rule ??