Answer: Singular or Plural with Numbers and Related Words
An anonymous requestor asked us, "Should nouns following a number other than 'one/1' be plural? What about 'no' or 'zero' -should the noun be in plural form? Is there any case when a noun following 'no' or 'zero' stays singular?"
This is an interesting question that made me think about things I usually take for granted. Take this example:
"You owe me seven chocolate frogs," said Ginny.
What part of speech is seven in this sentence?
In fact, it's an adjective. Some texts describe it more specifically as an adjective of number. It modifies frogs and lets us know something more about them.
Given this, it's pretty clear that when the adjective indicates more than one item, then the noun needs to be plural. The only exception would be certain unusual terms that don't really have a plural form. For example, in England, some units of currency and weight (such as stone and the venerable slang monetary terms quid and bob) are always singular:
They found Hagrid cooing over an unprepossessing creature that looked like a huge, ugly chicken. "Look at you! Such a good lass: you've already gained three stone since I switched your feed!"
In contrast, as our requestor suggests, nouns following "no" or "zero" can be plural:
"What do you mean, our Yule Ball committee needs work?" asked Ron. "We're doing a fantastic job!"
"But look at our membership. We have three Gryffindors, three Hufflepuffs, and a Ravenclaw, but no Slytherins!" said Hermione.
"I don't see that as a problem," said Harry, after a moment.
On the other hand:
"Do you three really think this is a good idea?" asked Neville.
There was no answer from his classmates.
The textbook Advanced Grammar in Use suggests that using the singular after no is more formal. Thus both examples are correct: Hermione is a young teen and can't be expected to always use the most formal speech, despite her academic brilliance, but the author's voice is unsurprisingly a bit more formal.
Another sort of exception comes when the number and the noun it modifies both become part of a compound adjective:
Of course, Fred and George didn't buy their Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans in little bags like other students. They stocked up on five-pound sacks of the sweets.
In this case, although five modifies pound, both of them are part of a compound adjective describing sacks, and pound stays singular. On the other hand:
"That cat of yours is a monster, Hermione!" said Ron. "Bet he weighs all of forty pounds!"
Pounds in this case is simply a noun, so it is plural with the number forty.
Finally, let's look at the use of zero. This example is correct:
"Hermione, I think zero Slytherins is just the right number to have on the Yule Ball committee," said Ron.
And so is this:
"I do not want to hear any more reports of Gryffindor students in the Forbidden Forest," said Professor McGonagall. "I will have zero tolerance for any infractions!"
What's going on here? The difference is that Slytherins is a count noun. You can "count" these types of items with normal numbers: one Slytherin, two Slytherins, and so on. The same is true of many other nouns: apple, computer, and mountain, for example. On the other hand, tolerance is an uncountable noun. These types of nouns are sometimes called "noncount nouns" or "mass nouns" because many of them refer to physical things than need to be parceled out into units: cups of water, pounds (or kilos) of flour, acres (or hectares) of ground. However, the Oxford dictionaries note that a number of abstract nouns are also uncountable: they give as examples happiness, truth, darkness, and humor. This is why Ron can speak of zero Slytherins, but the professor speaks of zero tolerance.
You can see that although this is a fairly intricate subject, there are actually guidelines to use in deciding whether to use singular or plural nouns in these instances. Don't be intimidated!
Sources
- Count and Noncount Nouns: Basic Rules (Purdue OWL, Purdue University)
- Countable and uncountable nouns (Oxford Dictionaries)
- No = not / not any (BBC Learning English)
- Hewings, Martin. Advanced Grammar in Use. 2nd ed. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005.