I've been meaning to follow up on this discussion, but things have been
a little chaotic lately. Also, my GA has my copy of Huddleston and
Pullum right now for some research we're doing on plurals. So I'll go
to the older by still august Quirk et al. The divide invariable plurals
into five types:
Summation plurals: binoculars, bellows, scales, clippers, scissors,
tweezers, britches, jeans, pajamas, tights, etc., where two parts are
joined together.
Pluralia tantum (nouns, in a given sense, occurring only in the plural
and with plural concord): damages, amends, annals, arrears, clothes,
brains., regards, spirits (mood), tropics, etc.
Unmarked plural nouns: people, police, folk, cattle, poultry, vermin
-ics forms are interesting in that some of them, like "graphics", have
both singular and plural uses. I hear things like, "his politics are to
the left of mine", although I also accept a singular verb there. In
other cases, like "physics", the -s doesn't mark a plural anymore.
Originally, when the word was first borrowed into English as part of the
translation of the title of Aristotle's ta phusika "The Physics", it was
borrowed as a plural because the Greek form is a neuter plural. It was
after this that many other -ics forms were borrowed or created, as is
still happening. In fact, the paper I'm working on with my GA argues
that the -s on physics isn't plural at all but rather a derived nominal
suffix whose history, development, and modern distribution we trace.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
Huh, interesting. It was tempting to ascribe more devious motivations
to this usage (pretending to represent more than one person) but the
"one to whom something has been committed" explanation is more logical.
Thanks, Karl.
Beth
Beth Rapp Young
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~byoung
University of Central Florida
From Promise to Prominence: Celebrating 40 Years.
>>> [log in to unmask] 11/15/2004 11:52:14 AM >>>
That usage is perhaps modeled after the East India Company. Each of
its
directors was individually known as a committee. In point of fact,
this
singular usage (one to whom something has been committed) is the older
one, and I would have said obsolete until you mentioned this example.
Karl Hagen
Department of English
Mount St. Mary's College
Beth Young wrote:
>Ah, interesting!
>
>The only analogous example I can contribute to this thread was
created
>around the same time, but it has very limited usage. The Christian
>Science church pays people to serve as "Committee on Publication" but
>each committee is just one person. In other words, there's a
Committee
>on Publication for Florida, one for Georgia, one for Alabama, and
each
>has the official title, "Committee on Publication, MyState." I've
>always wondered whether this use of "committee" to refer to a single
>individual was a more common practice in the late 19th c, but I keep
>forgetting to look it up.
>
>Beth Young
>
>
>
>
>
>Beth Rapp Young
>http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~byoung
>
>University of Central Florida
>>From Promise to Prominence: Celebrating 40 Years.
>
>
>
>
>>>>[log in to unmask] 11/13/2004 11:52:11 AM >>>
>>>>
>>>>
>In 1882, the calvery officially adopted the term "troop" to identify
a
>group
>of soliders and the term "trooper" to identify the individual.
Although
>we
>no longer have a calvary, my guess is that we still have "troop" as a
>shortened form of "trooper."
><http://www.nps.gov/prsf/history/glossary.htm >
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Veit, Richard" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 9:47 AM
>Subject: Re: plural noun with no singular
>
>
>Nancy,
>
>Indeed "troops" has always been treated as a collective noun and
still
>is
>(Today's NY Times: "U.S. Troops Set for Final Attack on Falluja
Force,"
>and
>my 10-year-old dictionaries show it only in that sense. What you
missed
>is
>that newspapers and TV news reports now also use the term in a
>non-collective sense, as in "Over 1000 American troops have been
>killed" and
>"23 Troops Ambushed in Kirkuk."
>
>I suspect this was originally a convenience for headline writers.
>"Troops"
>is shorter than "soldiers" and covers all military personnel. The
>curious
>fact is that I have seen it used in print for as few as two persons
>but, to
>my knowledge, never for one. Bill McCleary's quotation from a soldier
>("You're a good troop") is an indication that this may now be
changing
>as
>well.
>
>Dick Veit
>
>________________________________
>
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Nancy
>Downard
>Sent: Fri 11/12/2004 5:25 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: plural noun with no singular
>
>
>In my VERY humble opinion, the word 'troop' is in its singular form,
>HOWEVER, because it's a collective noun, it automatically refers to a
>group
>of something. You can have a single troop (one group of soldiers) or
>many
>troops (several groups of soldiers).
>
>There are many collective nouns out there that follow this same
>pattern, a
>herd of elephants (one group) or herds of elephants (more than one).
>Other
>examples, gaggle/s, pride/s, pod/s, etc.
>
>Am I missing something in the original post????
>
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