Plural But Singular in Construction

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In the dictionary, when you’re looking up a noun that ends in s, you’re apt to find a notation like this: “noun plural but singular in construction.” What does that mean?

This description refers to words like news that appear to be plural but take a singular verb (hence the word construction, meaning “sentence structure,” not “appearance”). One category of words plural in appearance but singular in use is that of intellectual pursuits and their associated academic disciplines: For mathematics, physics, and the like, we use a singular verb: “Mathematics is difficult for him”; “The physics is staggeringly complex.” However, similar terms may use singular or plural verbs depending on the sense: “Statistics is not my favorite subject”; “The statistics are valid.”

In other contexts, usage varies. Gymnastics is treated singularly (“Gymnastics is an Olympic sport”), but calisthenics takes a plural verb (“Calisthenics are boring”). Both words refer to a routine of physical activities, but noun-verb agreement is inconsistent.

Some words that are plural but refer to a unified pair of objects, such as (eye)glasses, pants, and scissors, are nevertheless associated with plural verbs: “My glasses are missing”; “These pants have gotten too tight”; “The scissors are dull.”

Words in several other categories are categorical exceptions: Proper names, composition titles, and words used as words are always singular, even if they are plural in form:

• Acme and Sons is a highly rated company.
• Spats is a downtown bar.
• Demons is a terrible movie.
• Shades is a best-selling novel.
• Hits is an informal word meaning “search returns.”
• Aussies is a nickname for Australians.

A few words appear to be plural but are in fact taken directly from other languages in which s at the end of a word does not denote a plural form. For example, biceps (from Latin) is singular, though many people refer to the muscle in the front of one upper arm as a bicep, and kudo (from Greek) is widely employed as the singular form of kudos — meaning “praise” or “prestige” — though the latter form is singular. (Bicep and kudo are back-formations — linguistic innovations of varying legitimacy — but are not advisable in formal writing.)

Rarely, you’ll see a word that is plural in both appearance and usage, though the literal meaning of the word is singular. For example, whereabouts means “location,” but one writes that a person’s whereabouts are unknown (even though a person can be in only one location at once).

What Is a Sentence?

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Multiple definitions exist for sentence, and various sources differ in their interpretation of what constitutes a valid sentence and which forms are incorrect. Here’s a brief survey of what a sentence is.

A sentence is generally understood to be a unit of one or more words distinct from preceding and following text. Sentences are categorized as declaratives, or statements (“I walked the dog”), imperatives, or commands (“Walk the dog”), or interrogatives, or questions (“Should I walk the dog?”). A variation of the declarative form is the exclamation, or exclamatory sentence (“I walked the dog!”).

A sentence can be both imperative and exclamatory (in which case the exclamation point preempts the period) or both interrogative and exclamatory (in which case the question mark preempts the exclamation point, though some writers include both in that order — a style considered improper in formal contexts). A sentence can also be both imperative and interrogatory, though the former function overrides the latter one, and such statements are not treated as questions. (“Would you be so kind as to close the door” is simply a more courteous way to direct someone to close the door.)

Traditionally, the first letter of the first word of a sentence is capitalized, although some writers have chosen to eschew capitalization of the first word and perhaps proper nouns. (This style, however, is eccentric and frowned on in formal writing.) Terminal punctuation — a period, a question mark or an exclamation point, or ellipses — is also a general feature.

Sentences usually include a subject and a verb, but those parts of speech are not essential, though they are almost invariably employed in formal writing.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary includes the following definition for sentence: “A word, clause, or phrase or a group of clauses or phrases forming a syntactic unit which expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the performance of an action, that in writing usually begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pauses.”

Fragmentary Sentences and Sentence Fragments

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A sentence can be fragmentary, but it shouldn’t be a fragment. What’s the difference?

Writers should distinguish between fragmentary sentences and sentence fragments. The following sentences are fragmentary: “A virtuoso performance? Some virtuoso.” Despite the absence of a subject and a verb, which are considered standard components of a sentence, the reader fills in the missing parts: (“[Do you call that] a virtuoso performance? [That musician is] some virtuoso.”)

A sentence fragment, by contrast, is usually a dependent clause formatted as if it were a complete sentence, such as the second sentence in the following passage: “I went to the store. Because I need to buy some toiletries for my trip.”

The form shown in the second sentence isn’t necessarily always wrong; it’s appropriate as a response in colloquial dialogue:

“Why did you go to the store?”

“Because I need to buy some toiletries for my trip.”

Otherwise, however, it’s erroneous.

It’s possible, too, for a complete sentence to be misconstrued as a sentence fragment because of a simple error such as omission of punctuation. For example, “Before I was inclined to agree” is a sentence fragment, because the words do not constitute a complete thought; no useful information has been conveyed. The implication is that a condition will be described: “Before I was inclined to agree, I needed more proof.”

If, however, before is supplied as an adverbial tag, followed by a comma (“Before, I was inclined to agree”), the wording becomes a coherent statement indicating that in the past, the writer would likely have agreed with something. Presumably, a sentence will follow with a similarly constructed reversal written in the present tense (“Now, I’m not so sure”).

However, fragmentary sentences are valid. Besides the commentary form, shown above in the examples about the alleged virtuoso, they may take the form of interjections (“Whew!” “How sad!” “What a nightmare!”), expressions (“Good job!” “So long!”), and partial imperatives (“To the castle!”) Though, of course, exclamation points are not required in fragmentary sentences, they are common, and note that such sentences are considered colloquial and should be used with caution in formal writing. You with me?

Five Erroneously Constructed “Not Only . . . But Also” Sentences

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Writers often have difficulty determining the word order in sentences in which the phrase “not only” appears followed by an example and then, subsequent to “but also,” another example. Here are fixes to five such sentences.

1. “Digital cameras are not only changing photography, but our lives.”

The key to correct syntax in “not only . . . but also” constructions is, when sharing a verb between the two examples, placing “not only” after the verb: “Digital cameras are changing not only photography but also our lives.”

2. “He wasn’t only listening to tone, but also to the rhythms and patterns he would need to understand and communicate.”

This sentences partially conceals the problem because not is part of a contraction. To solve it, spell out the contracted phrase, and follow the rule stated in the explanation of the example above: “He was listening not only to tone but also to the rhythms and patterns he would need to understand and communicate.”

3. “Many people prefer the squatter neighborhoods not only because they provide affordable housing but freedom from government control and a sense of community spirit.”

This sentence is improved by the basic strategy of placing the verb before “not only,” but a further fix is recommended. Because the element following “but also” is a two-part phrase, freedom may be (at least initially) misconstrued as applying to both “government control” and “a sense of community spirit,” so distance the second phrase from the first: “Many people prefer the squatter neighborhoods because they provide not only affordable housing but also freedom from government control, as well as a sense of community spirit.”

4. “We house them in the nicest neighborhoods we can afford, the ones that are not only comfortable in themselves, but that mask direct evidence of the world’s unfairness.”

In this example, each corresponding phrase has its own verb. When this is the case, simply place “not only” and “but also” immediately following the respective verbs: “We house them in the nicest neighborhoods we can afford, the ones that not only are comfortable in themselves but also mask direct evidence of the world’s unfairness.”

5. “Eventually, I began to notice that dreams are not only inspirations for creative life and interesting puzzles to be solved, but that they provided access to a world of meaning that was even greater than the tactics of nonviolent social change.”

More complex sentences pose a challenge, but as in the other examples, simply break the sentence elements down. The two points of this sentence are “dreams are inspirations . . .” and “they provide access . . . .” To achieve parallel structure, precede the first phrase with “not only that” and the second one with “but also that”: “Eventually, I began to notice not only that dreams are inspirations for creative life and interesting puzzles to be solved but also that they provide access to a world of meaning that was even greater than the tactics of nonviolent social change.”

Three Erroneous Uses of Scare Quotes

Rules are made to be broken, but more often they are made to be followed, because violation of those rules, in writing as in any other human endeavor, often leads to unintended consequences. One case is the careless use of quotation marks for emphasis.

Scare quotes, as quotation marks employed for this purpose are called, are often used to call out nonstandard or unusual terms, or merely to introduce a word or phrase. However, although this strategy used to be common, scare quotes have taken on a new role that has largely, at least among careful writers, supplanted the old technique: Now, they are better employed to convey derision, irony, or skepticism.

For example, a writer who describes how “the institute offers workshops in ‘self-awareness therapy’” is widely presumed not to be gently preparing the reader for the appearance of an unfamiliar phrase; more likely, they are calling attention to what they feel is preciously New Age-y terminology.

Meanwhile, the statement “The Pentagon’s strategy of ‘pacification’ certainly did make things quieter in the neighborhood” comments on the evasive military euphemism, while “The ‘new’ model strikes me as less sophisticated than the old one” calls attention to an unjustified adjective.

Here are three types of superfluous usage of scare quotes:

1. The astronomers reported Tuesday that they had combined more than 6,000 observations from three telescopes to detect the system of “exoplanets.”

Exoplanets is a term that has only recently entered the general vocabulary, but neologism is not a criterion for use of scare quotes; simply introduce the word, define it, and move on: “The astronomers reported Tuesday that they had combined more than 6,000 observations from three telescopes to detect the system of exoplanets.” (In the article from which this sentence is taken, a definition of exoplanet follows the statement.)

2. They engaged in listening exercises and musical analysis so as to better understand the “musical DNA” of their favorite songs.

If you use an established term in an unfamiliar but analogous sense, trust readers to make the connection; don’t bracket the term in scare quotes: “They engaged in listening exercises and musical analysis so as to better understand the musical DNA of their favorite songs.”

3. So-called “notification laws” require businesses to notify customers when certain unencrypted customer data is improperly accessed.

Never employ scare quotes around a term introduced by the phrase so-called. Yes, you may want to signal to readers your dissatisfaction with the term, but so-called performs that function, so scare quotes are redundant: “So-called notification laws require businesses to notify customers when certain unencrypted customer data is improperly accessed.”

Five Parallelism Problems in Sentence Structure

It’s easy to produce a faultily constructed sentence by neglecting to install all the necessary parts. Each of the sentences below lacks a small but essential component that helps render the statement sturdy and structurally sound; read each discussion for an explanation of the flaw.

1. ‘Lifelong interest and enthusiasm for science is instilled through science literacy.’
Take the phrase ‘and enthusiasm’ out of the sentence, and you’re left with ‘Lifelong interest for science is instilled through science literacy.’ Here, the subject is followed by the wrong preposition. Omit ‘and enthusiasm for,’ and the result is ‘Lifelong interest science is instilled through science literacy.’ Now, the subject lacks any preposition. The solution? Each noun in the noun phrase ‘interest and enthusiasm’ requires its own appropriate preposition: ‘Lifelong interest in and enthusiasm for science is instilled through science literacy.’ (Depending on emphasis desired, ‘and enthusiasm for’ may be bracketed by a pair of commas, parentheses, or em-dashes but is correct without any interruptive signals.)

2. ‘They’re noisy, they’re tiny, weigh fifty pounds, and can be souped up from a speed of thirty-five miles per hour.’
Of the four elements in this list, two are preceded by pronouns and two aren’t. To achieve parallel compliance, all the elements must share one pronoun (‘They’re noisy, tiny, weigh fifty pounds, and can be souped up from a speed of thirty-five miles per hour’), or each requires its own (‘They’re noisy, they’re tiny, they weigh fifty pounds, and they can be souped up from a speed of thirty-five miles per hour’).

3. ‘They run farther, longer, and never get fat.’
The first two elements share a verb, and the third has its own. However, just as in the apportionment of pronouns in the example above, one verb must apply to all, or each element must have its own verb (especially if a single verb is not appropriate for all the elements).

In this case, the verbs must differ. Depending on the context, either revise the sentence so that farther and longer share the verb run (‘They run farther and longer and never get fat’), or provide longer with its own verb (‘They run farther, last longer, and never get fat’).

4. ‘John Smith is off the streets, sober, and has a job.’
The rule set forth in the previous sentence applies for simple ‘to-be’ verbs as well. Revise the sentence to read, ‘John Smith is off the streets, is sober, and has a job’ or ‘John Smith is off the streets and sober and has a job.’

5. ‘That opinion was uttered not by John Doe, but one of his vice presidents.’
The preposition by must be repeated at the head of the second clause to match the structure of the first clause: ‘That opinion was uttered not by John Doe, but by one of his vice presidents.’ The sentence could be recast in active voice (‘One of John Doe’s vice presidents, not Doe himself, uttered that opinion’), but the change doesn’t necessarily improve the statement.