By: Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar http://www.kau.edu.

sa/SBANJER
http://wwwdrshadiabanjar.blogspot.com

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 Problems With Nouns

With some nouns, it is not obvious that they are singular or plural:
1. Names of places or things are singular, e.g. countries (the United States, the
Netherlands), organizations (the United Nations).
2. 'News' is singular.
3. Fields of studies are singular, e.g. economics, physics, mathematics, statistics.
4. Diseases or medical conditions are singular, e.g. diabetes, measles, mumps,
rabies, rickets, shingles.
5. Expressions of measurements (time, money, distance, weight) are singular, e.g.
three days, one hundred dollars, two miles, fifty pounds.
6. Arithmetic expressions use singular verbs.
7. Some nouns are plural even though they do not end with -s or -es, e.g. police,
cattle, people, sheep, fish, staff, faculty.
8. Languages are singular, but a noun that means the people of a country takes a
plural verb.
9. When an adjective is preceded by 'the', it means the people with that quality or
characteristic (the poor = the poor people, the rich = the rich people, the
disabled = the disabled people) and it requires a plural noun.

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 PROBLEMS WITH NOUNS ENDING IN -S

Sometimes a proper noun that ends in –s is

singular:
If the noun can be substituted with the
pronoun ‘it’, it will be singular.

1. The United States is big.

2. The Philippines consists of more than 7,000 islands.
3. Sears is a department store.

It
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 Words that end in –s :
‘News’ is singular.
Fields of study that ends in –ics
require singular verbs.
Certain illness that ends in –s
are singular: diabetes, measles,
mumps, rabies, rickets, shingles.

The news is interesting.

Physics is easy for her.
Diabetes is an illness.

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 Expressions of:
time,
money, and
distance
usually require singular verbs.

Eight hour of sleep enough.

Ten dollar too much to pay.
Five thousand mile too far to travel.

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•Two and two is four.
•Two and two equals four.
•Two plus two is four.
•Five times five is twenty-five.

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 plural nouns that do not end in -s or –
es, e.g. police, cattle, people, sheep, fish,
staff, faculty, require plural verbs.

Those people are from Canada.

The police have been called.
Cattle are domestic animals.

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 Languages are singular. For example:
English, Arabic.
SINGULAR VERB
English is spoken in many countries.
Arabic is my native language.

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 A noun that means the
people of a country takes a
plural verb e.g. the English, the
Chinese, the Japanese.

PLURAL VERB
The Chinese drink green tea.

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 Some nouns of nationality
that end in –sh, -ese, and –ch
can mean either language or
people, e.g., English, Chinese,
French.

SINGULAR VERB PLURAL VERB

French is a common The French are friendly
language. people.
Japanese is a The Japanese are
difficult language. workaholic.

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 A few adjectives can be
preceded by the and used as
plural nouns (without final –s)
to refer to people who have
that quality, e.g., the young,
the dead.

PLURAL VERB
The poor have many problems.
The rich get richer..

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 pdfMachine
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