The parallel to singular vs. plural usage in biology is an interesting
one. Some collective nouns like "fish" mean one kind of fish even if lots of
individuals, but the plural form "fishes" means the speaker is talking about
multiple species of fish. (Although I never heard anyone talk about "sheeps"
and there are more than one species of sheep, so it's not universal.) "The
polecat is..." can be used to refer to the entire species--lots of
individuals. I think there's a useful parallel here--"lace" refers to the
concept as a whole ("the polecat is...") or in particular one kind of lace,
but "laces" would be used to emphasis that multiple kinds are being referred
to.
Nancy
Connecticut, USA
>________________________________
> From:
Lorelei Halley <lhal...@bytemeusa.com>
>To: lace@arachne.com
>Sent: Tuesday,
May 20, 2014 4:21 PM
>Subject: [lace] lace style sheet
>
>
>...So an animal
species name can be
>singular in form, polecat or pheasant, but refer to the
species as a whole. Or
>the species name can be used to describe this one
particular polecat or this
>one particular pheasant. Although in current
American English practice I
>think most biologists would say "polecats are
recovering in numbers under
>protected status", or "pheasants are an
introduced species".
>...
-
To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line:
unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to
arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
