One of our intrepid editors was listening to a broadcast calling someone a “member of the press crew” and the announcer pronounced the word \KORZ\. This made our editors find it a bit strange: isn’t it usually “hit \KOR\”?
The Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps play in Frederick, Maryland. Although ‘legion’ refers to a group, it is singular. ‘Corps’ also has a plural form, spelled identically, but pronounced differently.
soldiers is a word borrowed into English from French, where soldiers means “body”—both literally (that is, anatomically) and figuratively (meaning to refer to a large group of people). When English comes on soldiers from the French pocket, we use only figuratively: some of our earliest printed evidence of French borrowing in English relates to military campaigns and groups of soldiers. And though Noah Webster called it “a bad word in English” in 1828 American English Dictionary, we find it useful enough to keep. Though it’s a word surrounded by some confusion. How do you pronounce it? Is it singular, plural or not?
At France, soldiers in the sense that “group” is singular, as in “a legion.” How do the French refer to more than one legion? With the plural of soldiersthis happens too soldiers.
When we take soldiers into English, we also take its Francophone plural, which means English soldiers both singular (“one crew of reporters”) and plural (“two crews of reporters”). The problem is the few soldiers refer to a groupand so we feel plural: Corps of Engineers, Volunteers, Press Troops.
In speech, when we refer to many legions, we pronounce -S (\KORZ\). But in print, we have to rely on other context clues:
decided to audition for three drum teams
several press delegations accompanied the candidates
How can you say if soldiers Is it singular or plural in a structure? Try replacing the word group give it to see if it makes sense. If yes, then specifically soldiers is few. If not, then it’s plural:
Army engineer group ✔
a group of volunteers ✔
press group ✔
audition for three drum groups x
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
