Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about English grammar and usage — most of which I promptly forgot. And not for lack of use. Every day I apply what I’ve learned to catch and fix writers’ mistakes.

The couple is going to purchase the house? Or the couple are going to purchase the house? Even after all my years of editing, I can still get tripped up trying to make verbs agree with collective ...

However, there are many types of noun and noun phrase in English, and it can be difficult to know if a particular noun takes a singular verb (such as DOES / HAS / AM / IS ) or a plural verb (DO / HAVE ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. Forming a plural is pretty easy, right? You just add an “s” to something. Unless, of course, it’s a word that already ends ...

Yasuhiro Chasi from Japan now studying in the US writes: Could you please tell me when to use the plural form of a noun after words like any and no? For example, it seems that people tend to say: I ...

Is ‘majority’ singular or plural? The word “majority” can be either singular or plural, depending on whether we are talking about a group or collection of individuals or the individuals in a group. If ...

There are some nouns that only have a plural form, regardless of how we think of them. They are known as pluralia tantum, Latin for “plural only.” Here are 11 of them. 1. Scissors Scissors has a ...