Plural or Not?

Some words can go either way. “Fish,” for example can mean more than one of the critters; but you can also say “fishes,” particularly if you’re referring to more than one kind.

Here’s another critter that can go either way. The lady behind the counter gets the distinction.

• Use “shrimp” when you refer to the ocean-going crustacean. “I had a dozen shrimp for dinner.”
• Use “shrimps” when you’re referring to more than one small human. “We fourth-graders are shrimps compared to those seniors.”

Do any other double-form plurals come to mind?

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I might have addressed “none” before, but this example strikes me as a good illustration of the effect of context.

After all, none is a contraction of “not (even) one.” That’s a singular, right? But the context of the word often says none of [a group of something], and we grab that plural object of “of” to signal the number of “none.” Technically, this is incorrect. We get the number of a verb from its subject, not from some modifying phrase. This is easier to say if you take out that prepositional phrase: “None is how many cookies you get before supper.”

Well, how about this example? Last panel:

Singular doesn’t feel right, does it? If she had said “not one,” the singular feels better…

Singular subjects get a singular verb, right? And plural subjects get a plural verb. (We call this agreement.) So is the subject of this sentence singular or plural?

Let’s be technical: “1” is the subject of the sentence, and it’s a singular. “8 couples” is a plural, but it’s the object of the preposition “in.”

Now let’s be, um, poetic: “1 in 8 couples” obviously refers to a group of people, especially since we’re referring to a large population of people. We can be metaphorical and call the whole phrase the subject of the sentence semantically, right? So we could use a plural verb, right?

What do you think? Feel free to add something in the comments.

Here’s the picture from the article:

Maybe I just feel curmudgeonly today. You can decipher the sentence, maybe, but it takes a while to figure out what’s wrong with it. Here’s the sentence:

“Shield” should jump right out at you as incorrect: it should be “shields,” to go with “decades-old law,” right? So why did a professional writer (and editor, I presume) use the plural, “shield”? I think to go with the plural “changes” in the second line. But “the decades-old law” interferes! Especially since we see only one comma, which separates that plural verb (shield) from the plural (changes) and puts it with the closer singular (law). But putting a comma after “law” makes the sentence sound awkward. (The rule is that two commas count as zero commas.) And what if the intention was to use “shields,” which changes the meaning of the whole sentence!

A bad sentence no matter what you do to it. How would you fix this?

Here’s my solution:

Frank Pallone Jr., the chairman of the committee hosting the hearing, said he wants to explore making some changes to Section 230 to shield tech companies from lawsuits over posts, videos, and photos that people share on their platforms. The law is decades old.

Maybe the sentence means the opposite:

Frank Pallone Jr., the chairman of the committee hosting the hearing, said he wants to explore making some changes to Section 230 because it shields tech companies from lawsuits over posts, videos, and photos that people share on their platforms. The law is decades old.

Make the reference to the age of the section into a separate sentence.

Here’s a picture of the CEOs scheduled for the hearing. I don’t have a shot of Mr. Pallone.:

PS—I fixed the missing oxford comma, too. Did you notice?

Subject-verb agreement

The rule: A singular subject gets a singular verb, a plural subject gets a plural verb

What’s the subject in this sentence? A list of customer accounts has three items.

It’s “list,” even though the verb is right next to a plural noun. So the singular noun gets a singular verb, “has.”

Here’s a tricky one: We have here a list of items that occur/occurs in an error condition.

Is it the list that occurs, or is it the items that occur?

It’s the items!

So—

Be alert for what the subject is! It can make a big difference in what you say.