Re: Table Names: Singular or Plural?

>> As an aside, do all languages have both plural and singular
versions
of (most of) their nouns? <<

No. Written Chinese is the most widespread example, and other Asian and Asian pidgin languages use separate words for the number -- "he buy {some, many, the, a, etc. } book"

>> some have singular, dual, and plural nouns rather than just
singular and plural. <<

Arabic.

>> Languages also make a distinction between countable nouns and
uncountable nouns and between singular and plural versions of them. <<

Then there are counting words "sheet of paper", "pair of pants", etc. Finnish has 17 of them, and I cannot remember how many are used in Japanese ("hon" was the general one).

>> In addition to plurals/countables/uncountables, most (all?)
languages have collective terms -- a flock, a herd, etc. ... British and American English differ in whether they treat collective nouns as single unit or as a collection of individuals: "my family is in town" versus "my family are in town".<<

Before the War Between the States, it was "The United States are ...", then when a strong federal government was in place, the grammar became "The United States is ..."

>> Making choices about plurality and granularity of data hides
information
however it is done. <<

Agreed! And that information hidding is what I want in my collective (flock, table), plural (geese, subset query) and singular (goose, row) model for naming conventions. Received on Wed Apr 10 2002 - 20:59:15 CEST