Collective Nouns: Is a Pluralized Collective Noun Still Collective?
murr...@compmore.net
Still here? Pedant!
Ahem.
Collective Noun: A noun that might represent a group.
For example, money. Money represents an amount unspecified.
The word monies is used to describe money of many different varieties. It
draws attention to the fact that there are more than one type of currency.
"The monies of the world are convertible to one another at a cost and in
various ratios."
Now my question is, is "Monies" a collective noun? It's a plural of a
collective noun, but is it still a collective noun?
Please email me your response (also?).
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Robert Lieblich
> <snip>
>
> Collective Noun: A noun that might represent a group.
> For example, money. Money represents an amount unspecified.
>
> The word monies is used to describe money of many different varieties. It
> draws attention to the fact that there are more than one type of currency.
>
> "The monies of the world are convertible to one another at a cost and in
> various ratios."
I don't know the source of this example, but my dictionaries suggest
that the correct spelling in such a context is "moneys." In this sort
of sentence, the singular "money" functions not as a collective noun but
as a singular, equivalent to "currency." The plural is a normal plural.
> Now my question is, is "Monies" a collective noun? It's a plural of a
> collective noun, but is it still a collective noun?
"Monies" is actually equivalent to "funds," as in "We lack the monies
[i.e., the funds] to invest in your business." It functions like a
collective noun, but because it is plural in form there is no need to
put it in a separate category. Being a plural, it has no plural, and it
takes a plural verb.
I think I may have deduced a general proposition from this: What
distinguishes a collective noun is that although it is in singular form,
it takes a plural verb and has no plural (in its collective sense).
Because all plurals (okay, there are probably a few exceptions) have no
plural and take a plural verb, there is no need to consider whether a
noun in plural form is a collective noun.
Then again, maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Bob Lieblich
Aaron J. Dinkin
> I think I may have deduced a general proposition from this: What
> distinguishes a collective noun is that although it is in singular form,
> it takes a plural verb and has no plural (in its collective sense).
Off the top of my head I can think of absolutely no nouns that fit that
description. Mass (or uncountable) nouns have no plural forms ("hydrogen",
*"hydrogens"[1], for example) but take a singular verb; what are normally
termed collective nouns may take either a singular or a plural verb
depending on dialect and context but have plural forms ("the team is", "the
team are", "the teams are"). What are you referring to.
[1] And before someone says it - yes, I know "hydrogens" is a word, meaning
"hydrogen atoms" or "hydrogen ions", but in that sense "hydrogen" is a
count noun, not a mass noun. I didn't want to spend time trying to think of
a noun that is always uncountable.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
P&DSchultz
> ... I didn't want to spend time trying to think of
> a noun that is always uncountable.
There may not be any, technically. There are nouns that are almost
always mass nouns (e.g., garbage), and nouns that almost never are
(e.g., apple). But these can both be stretched in opposite directions.
A refuse disposal corporation might catalog different garbages, and
you can pour too much apple into a pieshell.
As a countable noun, you can have "a banana," and you can have
"many bananas." If you mash up some bananas and put the mush into a
mixing bowl, the bowl is full of a mass noun, "some banana." Don't
get banana on your apron.
If you try to pluralize this mass noun -- say you and others have
mashed up several different batches of banana of varying color, age,
and provenance -- the resulting bowls of mush could be called "many
bananas" (like "many garbages"). But of course that doesn't mean the
same thing as "many bananas" means when it refers to many individual
pieces of the fruit.
It seems to me that the the plurals of mass nouns are syntactically
indistinguishable from the plurals of countable nouns, although they
are different semantically.
//P. Schultz
Stan Brown
> Collective Noun: A noun that might represent a group.
>For example, money. Money represents an amount unspecified.
I don't agree that "money" represents a group, any more than "sugar"
represents a group.
Both are mass nouns. They are pluralized when there are different kinds
or in other special circumstances -- for example, a recipe that has white
sugar and brown sugar as ingredients might direct you to cream the sugars
into the butter. But normally sugar is a mass noun, and so is money. "How
much money do you have?", not "How many money do you have?"
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
http://www.concentric.net/%7eBrownsta/
My reply address is correct as is. The courtesy of providing a correct
reply address is more important to me than time spent deleting spam.
Stan Brown
>I don't know the source of this example, but my dictionaries suggest
>that the correct spelling in such a context is "moneys."
AHD3 lists "Monies. A plural of money."
Robert Lieblich
>
> lieb...@erols.com (Robert Lieblich) wrote:
> >I don't know the source of this example, but my dictionaries suggest
> >that the correct spelling in such a context is "moneys."
>
> AHD3 lists "Monies. A plural of money."
It also lists "moneys." The point is that there is (or at least used to
be) a differentiation in the usage depending on context. Hence my use
of the word "context" in my discussion of the matter.
That said, I confess to mixing up mass nouns and collective nouns in the
same posting and making some inaccurate observations as a result. I've
already been called on them in other posts and shan't repeat them here.
Bob Lieblich
Geoff Butler
>
>The word monies is used to describe money of many different varieties. It
>draws attention to the fact that there are more than one type of currency.
>
>"The monies of the world are convertible to one another at a cost and in
>various ratios."
Can't be. Mass (collective) nouns take singular verbs ("Money is..."),
and you've already written "The moneys ... are ...".
-ler
Skitt
Geoff Butler wrote in message ...
Can too. Except for the "...there are more than one type of currency."
^^^
MWCD10:
Main Entry: 1 mon·ey
Pronunciation: 'm&-nE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural moneys or mon·ies /'m&-nEz/
--
Skitt http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/5537/
28.3854 -80.7012