What's the Us(ag)e?

1. The deceptive plurals

The first five lessons deal with deception. Why is that? It could be that so much of the language that we hear and see is meant to deceive us, the language of advertisers and politicians. And it’s especially so since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11/01. Even die-hard supporters of the war on Iraq admit that the language used to gather support for that war was deceptive, that there was no imminent threat from Iraq, that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, that there Saddam possessed no weapons of mass destruction. So what better example to use than the word “terrorist” to illustrate problems that many people have with plurals?

We learn to write after we learn to speak. This is obvious. But what is not often obvious is how much speaking and hearing influence our writing. And what is obvious to very few: writing is primarily visual. We hear language one way, but we reproduce it in writing another. And doing so produces some confusion, leading to mistakes in writing that are not mistakes in speaking. Here are two commonly used words, common since 9-11-01.

Terrorist. One person.

Terrorists. More than one person.

Example: many people in the U.S consider Osama bin Laden a terrorist.

He is only one person; therefore, we use the word “terrorist.”

 Example: The men who bomb abortion clinics are also terrorists.           

“Men” means more than one person; therefore, we use the word “terrorists,” the “s” indicating the plural of the word “terrorist.”

 English is fairly regular about signifying plurals: we add an “s” to the singular. Some words change form: “man” becomes “men” and “woman” becomes “women.” Most of us have no problems with most plural forms, but many of us do have problems with those that none of us pronounce in a way that indicates the plural form. How many of us say the word “terrorists” so precisely that someone can distinguish it from how we say “terrorist”? Or what about the word “test”? Does saying “test” sound different enough from “tests” that another person could hear the difference?

We can’t rely on speech as our guide. We have to remember that simple rule from grade school: most singular nouns form the plural by adding “s” (or in some cases “es”[box, boxes; fox, foxes] ).  You might consider making a list of these deceptive plurals. Or, if you send me a word or two that causes confusion when used as a plural, I’ll compile the list and send it to everyone.

Don’t always trust your hearing.

            Don’t get terrorized about using plurals.

Return to Usage Table of Contents