1. Pinkymcfiddle

    Pinkymcfiddle Banned

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    Plurals and stuff

    Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by Pinkymcfiddle, Mar 25, 2017.

    I wrote this the other day, looked back at it and wondered: -

    The characters you have described and their dynamic sounds interesting to me.

    Should it be sound or sounds? My instinct is that the plural should follow the second clause. But the first clause is singular.

    What is the rule?
     
  2. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    There's more than one thing that sounds interesting, so it should be plural.
     
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  3. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    It should be sound.

    As @BV says, one thing sounds interesting, whilst many things sound entertaining...for example.
     
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  4. joe sixpak

    joe sixpak Banned

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    sound sounds correct to my ears

    sounds sounds incorrect in that sentence to me

    the rule depends whether you are in the usa or UK or some other place.
    usa uses a collective noun as singular but they consider it as individuals




     
  5. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    What do you see as a collective noun in this example?
     
  6. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    This particular sentence is not an example of the different way in which the US and the UK engage collective nouns. The answer is clear. Sound.
     
  7. Pinkymcfiddle

    Pinkymcfiddle Banned

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    That sound like an American perspective to me.
     
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  8. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    No. :-D That sounds like an American perspective... :bigwink:

    But back to the point.... The word characters is a simple, standard plural. It is not a collective noun in any speaking region.
     
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  9. joe sixpak

    joe sixpak Banned

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    the word characters sounds very plural to my ear and takes the verb sound without the s being appended
     
  10. joe sixpak

    joe sixpak Banned

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    maybe not the best example but i agree that sound is correct in the OP for the usa usage of agreements

     
  11. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Obviously "characters" is plural - it's nothing to do with your ear, it's just reality.

    But something being plural doesn't mean it's a collective noun.



    Seriously, just ease off a bit and you can start over, here. Start using capitals and punctuation, stop pretending you know more than you do, and you'll be fine. We're all just figuring stuff out--you don't need to be an expert to be a valued member of the community.
     
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  12. Pinkymcfiddle

    Pinkymcfiddle Banned

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    Stop messing with my tenses ;)
     
  13. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    map-dragon21.jpg
     
  14. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    "Plural" and "collective noun" are not the same thing.

    Also, punctuation and caps.
     
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  15. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    When you say "the first clause is singular", what are you referring to? "characters" is plural.

    If you wanted to substitute a singular noun you could say

    The cast you have described sounds interesting to me.

    I add another singular noun just for purposes of demonstration. Below, both "cast" and "setting" are singular.

    The cast you have described sounds interesting to me. The setting sounds interesting as well.

    But when you put them together, you treat the combination as plural:

    The cast you have described, and the setting, sound interesting to me.
     
  16. Pinkymcfiddle

    Pinkymcfiddle Banned

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    But first of all I wrote it like this: The casts you have described and the settings, sounds interesting to me.

    Then I thought that the second clause was superfluous to the sentence; it was not an essential clause, so I thought I should put a "but" in there.

    The casts you have described, but the settings, sounds interesting to me.

    Then I had the issue with sound or sounds. I thought that I was refereeing multiple people, so at that point I should use plurals. This is the point I was unclear on.

    I ended up with: The casts you have described, but the settings, are sounding interesting to me.
     
  17. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I no longer know what your sentence means. None of your samples above are grammatically correct. Can you break the thought out into smaller pieces?

    What do you mean by "The characters you have described." To you, does it mean the same thing as, "You have described the characters."?

    So do you mean, "You have described the characters, and their dynamic sounds interesting to me." ?
     
  18. Pinkymcfiddle

    Pinkymcfiddle Banned

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    I'll try. I cannot remember the full context, but i think I was trying to congratulate someone on their interesting synopsis. There were two parts to the synopsis; namely the characters and the setting. So I was intending to tell them that I found both the characters and the setting compelling.

    I started with: The casts you have described and the settings, sounds interesting to me, and, maybe I overthought this, but I ended up with: The casts you have described, but the settings, are sounding interesting to me.

    I am not quite sure how I got there, because, in my head, my intent was clear, but when I put pen to paper - or fingers to keyboard - it all came out wrong.

     
  19. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    Maybe,

    'The casts you have described, and the settings? Sounds interesting to me,' he said.
     
  20. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    The "but" before "settings" communicates to me that the settings are in some way distinguished from the cast. So, the best interpretation that I can make of your last example above is that the cast was boring but the settings were interesting.

    What do you mean by the "but"?

    Edited to add: Could you please break this into two sentences, one about the cast and one about the settings? Maybe that would tell me what you mean.
     
  21. Pinkymcfiddle

    Pinkymcfiddle Banned

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    I like big "buts" and I cannot lie. But I might have used them in the wrong context. I meant to say that I liked... oh I am fucking about. Sorry.
     
  22. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    So...
    So...
    Did the original example not actually have a meaning?
    My brain hurts.
     
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  23. Pinkymcfiddle

    Pinkymcfiddle Banned

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    The original example was a typo, but I thought it might make an interesting discussion. Then I got drunk and started playing.
     
  24. joe sixpak

    joe sixpak Banned

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    the issue is whether a collective noun is plural or singular

    UK and USA treat it differently
     
  25. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    The point being made, though, is that there were no collective nouns present at the beginning of this conversation. We are all very familiar with the phenomenon of collectives and how they are treated in the UK vs. the US.

    Examples:

    U.S. - "Apple is introducing a new iPhone this month."

    U.K. - "Apple are introducing a new iPhone this month."

    Important to note, as has been noted in the past, this pluralization of collective nouns is not universal in the UK. It is a relatively new syntactic shift, on the linguistic timeline, and for many Brits this pluralization is just as jarring to the ear as it is for those of us in North America. The argument for the plural is that sometimes when referring to a singular entity like Apple, what is really being referred to is the plurality of people of which the entity is composed, but again, under no circumstances does this fly with all Brits; thus, it cannot be thought of as a rule, even in the UK, but only as a regional tendency in that area.

    Regardless, the initial example sentence gave us the word characters as part of the first clause. This word is not a collective and does not fall under the umbrella of the aforementioned phenomenon.
     
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