plural

Examples of plural in the following topics:

• Subject-Verb Agreement

  • Otherwise, it's plural.
  • Some indefinite pronouns can take a singular or plural verb based on whether the noun to which they are referring is uncountable (singular) or countable (plural).
  • Mass nouns, like "water" or "mud" are neither singular nor plural.
  • [The subject bags is a plural noun, so the verb were is also plural to agree with the subject.]
  • Some words ending in "s" refer to single objects but are considered plural and so should take plural verbs, unless they are preceded by "pair of" (in which case "pair" would be the subject).

• Making Subject and Verbs Agree

  • To assure this, writers need to consider whether the subject of her sentence is singular or plural, and whether the subject is first-person, second-person, or third-person.
  • Some nouns are mass or non-count nouns, meaning that they are neither singular nor plural.
  • Mass nouns always take singular verbs, even if the noun represents an object that may be plural.
  • If a sentence has a compound subject, you should use a plural verb even if all the components of the subject are singular nouns.
  • Note that this is the case specifically because of the word "or. " If the phrase was "the monkey's antics and the handler's chagrin," it would be a compound subject and take the plural verb "cause. "

• Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

  • "Singular" means "one of something," whereas "plural" means "more than one."
  • Examples of plural pronouns include we, us, they, and others.
  • [The plural pronoun they refers to the antecedent George, Omar, and Phil.]
  • In English, the pronoun "you" is the same whether it is singular or plural.
  • [By making the antecedent plural, you can use the gender-neutral plural pronoun their.]

• Apostrophes

  • The same holds true for plural nouns, if their plural ends in "s."
  • Apostrophes are sometimes used to form plurals for abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols where adding just s as opposed to 's may leave things ambiguous or inelegant.
  • For example, when you are pluralizing a single letter:

• Introduction to Inflection

  • For example, if you change from singular to plural (e.g., from “cat” to “cats,” or from “syllabus” to “syllabi”), you’re “inflecting” the noun.

• Abbreviations and Acronyms

  • Apostrophes are generally not used to pluralize abbreviations.

• Gender-Neutral Language

  • When referring to people in general, use plural pronouns "s/he" or "he or she" instead of gender-linked pronouns.

• Using the First Person in Academic Writing

  • While paragraph does employ the first-person plural pronoun "we," it does so to invite the reader into the wider scholastic conversation it means to address.

• Introduction to Pronouns

  • The main forms are "this/that" (singular) and "these/those" (plural).