# Grammar question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 9, 2003, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question/167555 "2003-04-09T14:59:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![prisoner6655321](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f8ce5/32.png) [@prisoner6655321](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prisoner6655321)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question/167555/21 "2003-04-11T23:34:25Z")
That should be School:fish = People : Person = Snakes:snake = Steelers:steeler Stupid smileys 😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question/167555/22 "2003-04-11T23:44:54Z")
The plural of person is people. And the plural of people is peoples. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2003, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question/167555/23 "2003-04-12T00:04:33Z")
Green Bay Packers are people. Soylent Green is people. ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question/167555/24 "2003-04-12T02:27:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by prisoner6655321 \* > \*\*No, a group of animals called “snake” is called “snakes” not “snake.” > BTW, it’s not like a group of animals that are called “fish” or “person.” The plural of fish is school and person is people. The plural form of Steeler is Steelers. > > School:fish = People:person = Snakes:snake = Steelers:steeler \*\* The plural of _fish_ is _fish_: \. (The plural can also be _fishes_, usually when the singular refers to a species or kind of fish rather than an individual animal.) The plural of _person_ is _persons_: \. There is some confusion here between a plural and a collective noun. A plural form is an inflected form of the same root as the singular: the regular plural in English forms by adding _-s_ or _-es_ to the singular form. A collective noun is one that refers to a group of individual members: \, \, \. But a collective noun is a different noun altogether–gramatically unrelated to the noun that describes the individual members of the collective group–with its own plural: \, \. For more about collective nouns, see the recent threads [Exaltation of Larks? Sez Who?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=176124), [Collective Nouns Question](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=166630), [More than just a Murder of Crows? Help!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=162112). (The collective noun for snakes, by the way, can be bed, den, knot, nest, pit, or rave.) _People_ is an odd case: it is not the plural form of _person_, but it is used almost as if it were. Both _person_ and _people_ form regular plurals, _persons_ and _peoples_, but we usually talk about a single _person_ but several _people_–not several _persons_, which is gramatically correct yet noticeably unidiomatic. _People_ can take a singular or a plural verb depending on its sense–which is one of the points that got this thread started. ---
**Author:** ![OliverTwistofLime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/b487fb/32.png) [@OliverTwistofLime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverTwistofLime)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2003, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question/167555/25 "2003-04-12T03:03:16Z")
I ---
**Author:** ![OliverTwistofLime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/b487fb/32.png) [@OliverTwistofLime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverTwistofLime)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2003, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question/167555/26 "2003-04-12T03:07:39Z")
One of the best: Isn’t there just ONE best? Shouldn’t it be one of the BETTER? or was this voted out years ago? Secondly…Is Jazz as in Utah Jazz, singular AND plural…like shrimp? ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2003, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question/167555/27 "2003-04-12T11:11:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MadSam \* > **One of the best: Isn’t there just ONE best? Shouldn’t it be one of the BETTER? or was this voted out years ago?** The “best” can include one or more. There are two issues here. First, _best_ is the superlative degree of the adjective _good_, and “best” or any other superlative can refer to a single member of a set or several. If you talk about _the_ best (or tallest, longest, shortest, whatever) member of the set, then you are talking about only one: \. But you can also talk about the three “best” members of the set, in which case they are each _one of the best_: \ \ Second, some adjectives are uncomparable–that is, their positive degree is absolute, and cannot meaningfully form a comparison. Most adjectives compare in three degrees: positive \; comparative, usually formed by adding the adverb _more_ or the suffix _-er_ \; and superlative, usually formed by adding the adverb _most_ or the suffix _-est_ \. But some adjectives do not undergo comparison: > [@](#): > > Many adjectives describe absolute states or conditions and cannot take “more” or “most,” “less” or “least,” or intensives such as “very” or “quite” or “largely.” The illogic of such combinations is illustrated in this sentence: “It is possible that this idea too has outlived its usefulness and soon will be largely discarded.” The literal meaning of “discard” impinges on the metaphor here: it is hard to imagine something being halfway discarded (though certainly an idea could be halfway discredited). Deleting “largely” clears the meaning. > > The best-known uncomparable (/uhn-KOM-pruh-buhl/) adjective is “unique” (= one of a kind). Because something is either unique or not unique, there can be no degrees of uniqueness. Hence “more unique” and “very unique” are incorrect. Yet something may be “almost unique” or “not quite unique” – the Hope Diamond is unique; a Gutenberg Bible is almost unique. The diamond is not “more unique,” though. > > Many other words belong to this class, such as “preferable” – e.g.: “Stoll said the city also plans dozens of hearings with groups, showing different scenarios of how growth could be handled and getting feedback on what is most preferable [delete ‘most’].” Jack Money, “Technology Useful in City Planning,” Sunday Oklahoman, 27 Apr. 1997, at 2. > > Among the more common uncomparable adjectives are these: absolute, adequate, chief, complete, devoid, entire, false, fatal, final, ideal, impossible, inevitable, infinite, irrevocable, main, manifest, only, paramount, perfect, perpetual, possible, preferable, principal, stationary, sufficient, unanimous, unavoidable, unbroken, uniform, unique, universal, void, whole. > > For example, the phrase “more possible” should typically be “more feasible,” “more practicable,” or the like, since something is either possible or impossible. E.g.: “The VA medical centers, which have a long history of hospitalizing patients, have been stepping up outpatient services as they become more and more possible [read ‘more feasible’] with emerging technology.” Mary McGrath, “Debate Over VA Center Comes Home,” Omaha World-Herald, 16 Feb. 1997, at B1. > > A few adjectives, such as “harmless,” are wrongly thought of as uncomparable. It’s hopelessly donnish to insist that something is either “harmful” or “harmless” and that you can’t write “more harmful,” “more harmless,” or “relatively harmless.” The same is true of many other words. From Bryan A. Garner, _Garner’s Modern American Usage_ (2d ed. 2003). Some authorities disagree about degrees of uniqueness, even when unique takes its absolute sense meaning “one of a kind” (as opposed to its more ambiguous sense meaning merely “unusual” or “distinct”). Uniqueness occurs in a context and, while the uniqueness itself may be absolute and uncomparable, there can be a comparison between the contexts in which it occurs. For example, a thing that is one in a thousand is unique, but a thing that is one in a million is even more unique. A seven-foot-tall basketball player may be unique within her high school, but not the only seven-foot-tall high-school basketball player in her whole state, in which case the eight-foot-tall player who is the only one of her kind in the state high-school conference is even more unique. Likewise _preferable_: two alternatives may both be preferable to the status quo, but one is more preferable than the other. Merriam-Webster’s (1994) argues, > [@](#): > > Those who insist that unique cannot be modified by such adverbs as more, most, and very are clearly wrong: our evidence shows that it can be and very frequently is modified by such adverbs. Those who believe that the use of such modifiers threatens to weaken (or has already weakened) the “having no like or equal” sense of unique are also wrong: our evidence shows that the “having no like or equal” sense is flourishing. And those who regard the use of unique to mean “unusual” or “distinctive” as a modern corruption are emphatically wrong: unique has been used with those meanings for well over a hundred years. Should you therefore use the disputed sense of unique with utter disregard for possible criticism? Should you shake the hand of the nearest usage commentator and tell him that you find his books “extremely unique”? Maybe not. The reasons people have for disliking such usage may not be especially sound, but they are cherished nonetheless, and they are widely promoted. There is no denying that many good writers and editors strongly disapprove of unique in its “unusual” sense, even though it is indisputably well established in general prose. Perhaps you might try being one who knows enough about its bad reputation to avoid it but who also knows enough about its actual history not to sneer at those who use it. _Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage_ 929 (1994). M-W cites more than a dozen examples in support of its argument. (On the other hand, the examples that M-W cites are uncomfortably often sports-related, and M-W barely survived its first printing.) Merriam-Webster may not be authoritative enough. But Stephen King is another story. The following passage appears in his recent novel _Dreamcatcher_: > [@](#): > > His body has been snatched, most righteously and completely snatched. Although there will be no army of zombies, not even a townful. He is unique. He senses that Pete, Henry, and the Beav are also unique (was unique, in the Beav’s case), but he is the most unique of all. You’re not supposed to be able to say that—like the cheese belonging to the Farmer in the Dell, unique supposedly stands alone—but this is a rare case where that rule doesn’t apply. Pete and Beaver were unique, Henry is uniquer, and he, Jonesy, is uniquest. Look, he’s even starring in his own movie! How unique is that, as his oldest son would say. Stephen King, _Dreamcatcher_ 282 (2001). ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2003, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question/167555/28 "2003-04-12T11:20:47Z")
Nice discussion, **brian**. I prefer Garner’s entry to M-W’s. The latter is a little too descriptivist for my liking, and i think Garner walks the prescriptive/descriptive tightrope about as well as anyone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question/167555.md?page=1)