If I want to say something like "judging from her first and second marriages," should I or should I not pluralize "marriage"?
Should this be plural?
I would use the plural. Unless you're using "marriage" twice, in which case it's singular.
In my mind it's the same as using the plural conjugation for "my brother and I ARE going" because there's two things.
In my mind it's the same as using the plural conjugation for "my brother and I ARE going" because there's two things.
Although I agree with Skippy, I would use the singular in actual speech because it sounds better (even if it isn't 100% correct), as if it were: "judging from her first-[marriage] and second- marriage,"
Damn it, I didn't know :-)
Is it because the possessive is not repeated? If you add the second her... would you use the singular? I would.
Judging from her first and her second marriage(s)...
And I would have used the singular in the original example too, but I found out I was wrong. Maybe I should have read it as "Judging from her marriages, first and second", so the plural would make sense.
Is it because the possessive is not repeated? If you add the second her... would you use the singular? I would.
Judging from her first and her second marriage(s)...
And I would have used the singular in the original example too, but I found out I was wrong. Maybe I should have read it as "Judging from her marriages, first and second", so the plural would make sense.
No, I don't think repeating the possessive would have an effect: I would still say "her first and her second marriages" (even though the repeated possessive doesn't sound quite natural anyway). I would use "marriages" in the plural simply because it refers to more than one marriage. For example, contrast:
"her red and blue cars"
with
"her red and blue car"
I think the second one would be ungrammatical if you're trying to refer to two different cars.
"her red and blue cars"
with
"her red and blue car"
I think the second one would be ungrammatical if you're trying to refer to two different cars.
I'm afraid I learned it the wrong way then. I understand the example of the red and blue cars. The second refers to one car that is red and blue, but I think the first can actually have three meanings: 1)her cars that are red and blue (maybe striped) -- 2)her red cars and her blue cars -- 3)her red car and her blue car.
Does that make sense?
Also, I tried looking for examples on the net. I noticed some patterns... Would you agree on the following examples?
In the first and second rounds... (plural)
In the first and the second round... (singular)
Does that make sense?
Also, I tried looking for examples on the net. I noticed some patterns... Would you agree on the following examples?
In the first and second rounds... (plural)
In the first and the second round... (singular)