N-PLURAL represents plural noun according to the explanation in the Collins COBUILD dictionary. Can I interpret it as a noun that is countable but unable to be used in singular form and only able to be used in plural form?
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N-SING represents singular noun according to the explanation in the Collins COBUILD dictionary. Can I interpret it as a noun that is countable but unable to be used in plural form and only able to be used in singular form?
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Does the verb after 'a set of + plural noun' agree with 'set' or 'noun'? For example:     'Law is a set of rules that govern/governs society.'
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According to Garner's fourth edition  When the verb precedes the noun percentage, a singular verb is required. That is, a higher percentage of them are, but there is a higher percentage of them  I'd love to have some elaboration on this point because I could't find any related information at all. Does this singular have to do with the pronominal there itself in general? EDIT:  Though serving as a plural when the need arises, series is ordinarily a singular noun. But it is also a noun of multitude, so that phrases such as a series of things take a plural verb. However, the collocation there {has been - is} a series has predominated in print sources. Common nouns of multitude: lot, majority, mass, minority, multitude, percentage, proportion, variety.  According to Microsoft® Encarta® 2009,  If you put the indefinite article a before percentage, use a plural verb when the noun or pronoun in any subsequent prepositional phrase is regarded as a countable plural, not a unit or a whole: A large percentage of the errors are found in this text. If the noun or pronoun object in such a phrase is singular or is regarded as a unit or a whole, use a singular verb: A large percentage of the electorate remains undecided.  However, a counterexapmle:  If you are speaking of the senators as individuals, say A majority of the senators have cast their votes
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When writing about specific quantities, should the verb reflect a singular or a plural value?  Do abbreviations vs. spelled-out words make any difference?  I took 2 ml of water, which was/were then added... Six microliters of protein solution was/were placed in a centrifuge...
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I was just wondering how can you use "there is" followed by a word that is in plural, e.g  "There's cupcakes in the fridge"  and  "There is a couple of things we can do --"   Is it just slang?
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I was reading Computers, Communications, and Information A User's Introduction (Seventh Edition) by Sarah E. Hutchinson and Stacey C. Sawyer.  The authors consistently used such terms as communications hardware and applications software. I thought we should use communication hardware and application software instead. Why did the authors use nouns of plural form this way?  EDIT: As far as I can remember from English grammar courses, a noun should typically be modified by a single noun preceding it. Rarely have I seen such usages as in the book.
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Possible Duplicate:          When I'm referring to a group of multiple things, should it be considered singular or plural for the purposes of applying a verb to it?  For example, which is correct in the examples below?     A sentence is a group of words that is followed by a period.   A sentence is a group of words that are followed by a period.      The group of people constitutes a jury.   The group of people constitute a jury.      A group of crows is called a 'murder'.   A group of crows are called a 'murder'.   My instinct is that it depends on whether the verb is referncing the group itself or the members of the group directly, but is that right?
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The following Latin/Greek singular vs. plural errors make me cringe every time:  bacterium - bacteria criterion - criteria millennium - millennia phenomenon - phenomena  It's extremely typical for an English speaker to always use the plural form, i.e. &quot;the bacteria replicates by...&quot;, &quot;the criteria for ... is ...&quot;, &quot;a nice millennia&quot;. I would go as far as to say that the incorrect use trumps the correct use, but maybe there's a slight bias because I started looking for it. Well, it's mostly on YouTube, but the speakers do have degrees or at least represent science channels. A well known physics professor even used &quot;these phenomenon&quot; along with &quot;this phenomena&quot;. Super-cringe. Yes I listened back several times, because it's sometimes hard to hear the exact endings. So much for the rant, the real question is: Have (some of them) become so common that they are considered acceptable? I can't really tell, because it's not my first language. Maybe I care more because of that.
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This is purely a curiosity, but I'm fascinated by mid-word pluralization, even if the word in question is a compound word.  For example, passersby or standersby.  No others have occurred to me. Can you provide other examples, or a link to a resource that enumerates them?  I'm particularly interested in compounds that do not include spaces or hyphens.
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I was in a conversation with my senior engineer where he kept on insisting that we can use plural when we write down any unit. I argued that it is not the 'common' practice or even throughout my whole academic career (unfortunately) I haven't found any instance where there was any plural unit used in the text books. He argued that if I said that it was not correct then it should have a good reason for that.  When I searched for this topic I couldn't come to any conclusive decision. Such as  thread and the other links those have been referred there (some leads to English.SE). These answers gave me the impression that it is grammatically acceptable provided the right circumstances.  But I felt that it would be rather ambiguous to accept plurals on scientific and engineering notations.  For example we were talking about output rate of a boiler which is measured in $\mathrm{kg/hr}$. My senior said that it is okay if anyone writes $\mathrm{kgs/hr}$.  To me it looks ambiguous. If anyone writes $\mathrm{s}$ after $\mathrm{kg}$ it may give a plural sense but as well it may refer to second also. Moreover if anyone argues that this is acceptable in some cases (like $\mathrm{kgs/hr}$) then what would be the yard stick to find out accepted cases? For instance can we add $\mathrm{s}$ in $\mathrm{m/s}$ or $\mathrm{km/hr}$ like $\mathrm{ms/s}$ or $\mathrm{kms/hr}$?  There is , which has this .     the length of the laser is $5\ \mathrm{m}$ but not: the length of the laser is five meters   But I want to have more conclusive answer to which one is acceptable i.e. $\mathrm{kg/hr}$ or $\mathrm{kgs/hr}$ (or other similar instances).
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Not all the time I have access to dictionaries. In school, I learned that abstract nouns are not countable; however, English is an ever-evolving language and nothing can be so certain here including  Experts are of only one opinion – it depends on the context!  Now, when it comes to certain nouns, I'm not sure how do natives guess them countable/uncountable. As a non-native speaker, it's difficult for me.   Say – equipment! Now, for a non-native like me, equipment is certainly countable! Equipment for this and that...so two equipments. But then, I'm wrong! I can still guess mood or freedom to be countable - mood of romance, mood of dullness – there is more than one mood so ‘moods’. Likewise, freedom of speech, freedom of roaming here and there - so there's more than one freedom – freedoms!   Is there any way to guess whether a noun is countable? Especially in those cases where I haven't any access to a dictionary. Is there any trick– like I found those tricks for freedom/mood.?
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another question, I used the following phrase:     Your reader is [...], but they are a busy person.   I have two difficulties here:   In the first phrase, a reader, being singular noun, certainly implies is; In the second phrase, they, being a plural pronoun (regardless that it refers a single person), still requires are, but are implies the plural for busy persons which sounds awkward (a reader &lrarr; persons);   Obviously, if I used "...but he is a busy person", everything works fine, but I'm trying to use a gender-agnostic form.  What is the proper number agreement here?
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I'd like to understand the logic behind uncountable nouns, such as "water", "meat" and others, specially "bread", for example.  I don't understand why can't we count them, since there are different kinds of water (e.g.: still, tap, sparkling, etc.), meat (e.g: beef, pork, etc.) and bread (baguette, bun, etc.).  Sorry if my question seems silly, but I'm not a native speaker.
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What is the rule for singular noun objects of plural subjects? For example I and  agree that     They gave their word.   is better than     They gave their words.   To my mind, this is because each has but a single word to give and cannot give more. However, google seems to  on     They gave their life.   vs     They gave their lives.   As you can see in the linked N-gram, the second is far more common than the first. What's going on here? People (cats excluded) only have one life and it seems passing strange that they would be able, let alone willing, to give more.   If pressed, I would claim that the object should only be plural if each of the subjects has many. For example     They called their friends   If each of the "they" in question has only one of whatever object we are talking about I would call it ungrammatical to have that object in the plural form. Am I wrong?    EDIT:  This question was prompted by a comment on  on S&amp;F.SE defending the use of consciousnesses as the plural form of consciousness by referring to . The word was used in this sentence:     Looking for a story where people download their consciousnesses into bodies   It occurred to me that whether or not consciousnesses is correct, it should not be used in that (admittedly bizarre) context since each person only has one consciousness to download. I would have therefore said     Looking for a story where people download their consciousness into bodies   This to me seems like an equivalent sentence to they gave their word or they gave their life. In all three cases I would use the singular form of the noun since each of the subjects can only give (or download as the case may be) one.
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Is the singular or plural form of a property required when describing an object which has a count of N for that property?  For example, a two-mode or a two-modes analog filter?
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According to this , if at least one of the nouns involved is plural then it should take the plural form of the verb. Otherwise, it should take the singular form of the verb. But in the last part it says not all grammars agree to those rules thus proximity rule applies. However, it doesn't explain when to apply the proximity rule and when not to use the former rules.
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Is 2/3 always, sometimes or never plural?  E.g.     1a) 2/3 of the pizza were eaten.     1b) 2/3 of the pizza was eaten.      2a) 2/3 of the visitors were men.     2b) 2/3 of the visitors was men.   I feel that example 1 could go either way but example 2b sounds very wrong.  Is there a rule for this?