Singular and plural nouns and its and their thread

[Moderator1]

SF you are correct, as usual. This discussion is fine here.

 

[buckweaver]

[So it's womens soccer then?

I've stopped worrying about the consistency thing. men's and women's get the apostrophes, and girls and boys don't, I guess.

Yeah, I'm the same way. Girls and boys don't get apostrophes; men's and women's do. Whatever.

There are plenty of exceptions to AP style, where there's not one way to do things (i.e. the plethora of threads on RBI vs. RBIs). It's like religion -- many paths to reach the same damn point. Use what works best and/or makes the most sense to you.

 

[jay_christley]

We do boys' and girls'.
If your using men's as a possessive -- then logically boys' is possessive and not descriptive.

Heat is a singular plural, so it gets a "their."
The are the Heat.
The Heat. The Senators. The Red Sox.
You wouldn't say, "The Notre Dame." Well, maybe you would if you were the Fighting Irish ;D
Just because it doesn't get an 's' on the end doesn't mean it isn't plural.

Yes, I know I'm anal about style. Somebody has to be, right 8)

 

[Ace]

We do boys' and girls'.
If your using men's as a possessive -- then logically boys' is possessive and not descriptive.

Heat is a singular plural, so it gets a "their."
The are the Heat.
The Heat. The Senators. The Red Sox.
You wouldn't say, "The Notre Dame." Well, maybe you would if you were the Fighting Irish ;D
Just because it doesn't get an 's' on the end doesn't mean it isn't plural.

Yes, I know I'm anal about style. Somebody has to be, right 8)

I may change my name to singular plural.

 

[jay_christley]

Damn, and the trademark is still pending. Stupid trademark office.

 

[jgmacg]

The difference between boys/girls/men's/women's, beyond the biological, is actually pretty simple.

'Boy' or 'girl' stand alone as singular. They need the 's' (with possessive apostrophe, positioned per your house style) to make them plural.(I prefer the terminal apostrophe; otherwise you might be citing an individual girl's individual basketball.)

'Men' or 'women' are each already plural, so don't need the 's' to make them so. Hence the non-negotiable apostrophe-'s' for possession.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

[ARD]

Whenever we have the singular/plural discussion, it always comes back to the same place -- it's whatever your publication's style is.

If you worked for an English paper, it'd be "Ghana are ..."

Agreed. I worked for an SE at a top-15 circ paper who insisted that "Team X ended a nine-game losing streak" was wrong and that it should be "Team X ended a losing streak after nine games." Never did figure that one out. We do what the boss says. At another paper, the publisher hated the phrase "all time" -- he said it covered the past, present and future -- and so banned "all-time leader," etc.

And I actually prefer the English way. Seems a lot simpler than debating ad nauseam what is singular and what is plural. However, I am not at an English paper, so I use the U.S. guidelines.

 

[ARD]

Damn, and the trademark is still pending. Stupid trademark office.

You were too late anyway.  http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=3974%203975%20