Grammatical error on coffee cups? Experts, please help.

Factual Questions
1

First of all, no, this has nothing to do with the age-old debate over “Good to the last drop.” Here goes…

A few days ago I bought a cup-o’-joe from some gas station convenience mart. The brand was (I think) Green Mountain, an outfit headquartered in Vermont.

On the cup, in typical disclaimer style, was the warning:

“Caution. The contents of this cup are hot.”

I think that “contents” is a singular noun in this case(despite it ending with an “s”), and the sentence should read: “contents is hot,” not “are hot.”

So, I emailed the company and told them so.

The nice lady at GM emailed me back with a dictionary cite saying, indeed, that “contents” is plural, thus “are” is correct.

Hmmm. I must admit, she made a good case, but I know that the last word rests with the Teeming Millions, not some crunchy, tree-huggin’ Vermont babe with a dictionary. Of course, if I am wrong, I’ll eat my humble pie like a man.

So, which is it, “is” or “are”? And defend your position.

2

Hmmmm

The content of this cup is hot?

maybe?

but I think I’d go for:

The liquid in this container is hot

Sorry

3

Wow, I can’t believe someone at the cup company bothered to reply about this. Not implying that your quest lacks merit, but I can’t believe THEY cared enough to answer.

They should just save ink and do it military style: “caution: contents hot.”

I know, that leaves a bit to be desired from the standpoint of answering your OP.

The truth is that sometimes we should allow ourselves to be guided by our ears instead of the rulebook. “The contents of this cup is hot” falls awkwardly on the ear and should be rewritten. “Caution: contents may sear skin and provide basis for million-dollar lawsuit” seems wordy…

4

On reflection, I’m coming down on the side of the coffee-cup chick. Since the cup may contain coffee and also other things such as cream and sugar, all of which would be hot after being combined, “contents” is plural and “are” is indicated.

People who drink black coffee have bigger problems than the grammar on their beverage containers.

5

Put me down in the “it’s already correct” camp… Of course, they could have just said “Contains some hot stuff. Bevare!”

6

hey, how about tailoring it specially for those pathetic litigous people:

‘Look, it ain’t s’posed to be cold, d**khead’

?

7

Let’s go to the source: Quirk and Greenbaum’s “A Concise Grammar of Contemporary English”

“Contents” is on the list (as is “annals,” “arrears,” “clothes,” “goods,” “lodgings,” etc.)

And before someone brings it up, even if there is one item in the cup, that item is the “contents” (plural) of that cup.

8

There’s a huge, hokey tourist souvenir shop in Clines Corners, New Mexico that has a whole shelf unit of coffee cups with family names on them. Many of them have misused apostrophes: “The Smith’s,” “The Jone’s,” etc. I’ve bought a few as gifts. Just another example of bad coffee cup grammar.
(and no, “Clines” doesn’t have an apostrophe.)

  • Jill
9

You can’t always trust a dictionary to be correct. Sometimes it’s relative. Dictionary editors and compilers put their own interpretations on the English language. Websters, for example, is a very liberal dictionary. The editors claim that they don’t intend to guide or affect the language itself, but only “report” it’s current usage as they observe it.

I’ve always disagreed with this method of creating Dictionaries. I believe the language does change and evolve, however, it should not be allowed to evolve by perpetuating incorrect usages such as; “irregardless”, ain’t, and other bastardizations of this type.

So as to this dilemma… Well, I have to say that from a purely grammatical viewpoint, the word “contents” is a plural noun and should be used with the verb form “are” in this case, eventhough it doesn’t seem to roll off the tongue quite so smoothly as “is”. According to H.W. Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage this is correct. I also used Oxford’s Universal Dictionary to research the word “contents”. I referred to Warriner’s English Grammar to determine the correct sentence structure.

Hope that helped a bit…

By the way, I agree with Chef Troy… the military way would have been best in this instance, “Caution: Contents hot!”

Regards,

10

Hmm.

I would consider “of this cup” to be somewhat redundant.

If you think about it as “The contents are hot” you see that the “are” is correct.

The “of this cup” just confuses the issue because “cup” is singular, so makes it seem that “is” would be appropriate when the subject is really “contents”.

I can’t believe the woman emailed you back…talk about good customer service. If I drank coffee, I’d buy that stuff!

11

definitely “contents are” for the reasons stated above and, well, doesn’t “contents is” just sound wrong? It sure as hell doesn’t jibe with my ears. Like “My pants is blue” or “The scissors is sharp”?