13

After the therapy, eight children (43%) became able to crawl/move on their back.

Or should I use "on their backs"?

Singular because each child only has one back, or plural because we're dealing with eight backs?

RegDwigнt
  • 97,231
mel p.
  • 133

3 Answers3

10

Plural, because we are, in fact, dealing with eight little backs. And a back is a back, no matter how small. A child has a back, but children have backs.

I'm sure others will back me on this.

Robusto
  • 151,571
  • 1
    Not relevant - if several children owned a single turtle between them, it would be "their turtle", not "their turtles". – lotsoffreetime Mar 06 '11 at 17:49
  • @user653: But the OP is not talking about a shared turtle. – Robusto Mar 06 '11 at 18:01
  • 5
    @Robusto, I think the point @user653 was making is that the fact that "their" is plural does not automatically imply that the word following it has to be plural too. – Hellion Mar 06 '11 at 18:24
  • @Hellion: Ah, I see. @user653 must be responding to @Fountain, not to my post itself. – Robusto Mar 06 '11 at 18:31
  • 2
    @Robusto: also, you forgot to mention that while children have backs, baby got back. :-) – Hellion Mar 06 '11 at 18:46
  • @Hellion: I'm gonna get @Martha to thwack you. – Robusto Mar 06 '11 at 18:53
  • I mean, when "their" is used as collections of ownership rather than collective ownership, the noun following must be plural if countable. – Fountain Mar 07 '11 at 04:03
  • I've deleted the first comment, replaced it with a clearer version. I can't edit comment after 5 mins. – Fountain Mar 07 '11 at 04:13
  • This seems an uncharacteristically prescriptive position from @Robusto. Semantically/grammatically/logically plural is 'correct', but Google Books suggests that on their back occurs at least 10% of the time, in contravention of that logic. In my opinion there's nothing wrong with the singular, and it would be used more often if people weren't frightened of being picked up for being 'ignorant'. – FumbleFingers Jul 08 '11 at 14:49
  • @Robusto: couldn't "their" be used as a gender-neutral singular pronoun here, or I am just making that up? –  Jul 08 '11 at 15:54
  • This seems an uncharacteristically prescriptive position from @Robusto. I'm surprised he hasn't deleted. Here is a better researched answer. Is Charlotte Brontë incorrect or extremely pessimistic to write 'Reader, I married him'? Must Reg Dwight's example 'Only those who qualify will be awarded a certificate' (specifying 1 apiece) be replaced by 'Only those who qualify will be awarded certificates'? (which works if there are 1, 3 or 10 apiece)? – Edwin Ashworth Nov 14 '20 at 15:22
5

The semantic, grammatical, and logical arguments clearly suggest it's 'correct' to use the plural, and that's what most people do.

However, despite the fact that I doubt if any style guide endorses the singular, it seems that about 10% of usages for back persist in using the singular.

For reasons which escape me, that 'incorrect' minority rises to nearly 25% when the body part in question is chest. In both cases the evidence strongly suggests the incorrect usage is becoming more widespread.

Personally I believe it's a situation where grammarians backed the wrong horse, and their blind prescriptivism will eventually be defeated. People quite naturally want to use the singular when the number of [body parts, whatever] is immaterial, and only the plurality of [babies, people] is relevant. Increasingly, it seems, they're prepared to do this even at the risk of being considered illiterate. .

FumbleFingers
  • 140,184
  • 45
  • 294
  • 517
  • Great explanation fumble. So, you are saying that it is more natural to use the singular in this case in spite of the grammatical rule, right? – Fadli Sheikh Aug 19 '19 at 23:33
  • 3
    In that graph, we have no idea of the surrounding context in which the words "on their chest" and "on their chests" are in. This question is about when the subject is plural. So it is possible that people merely discuss individuals on their chest often which tilts the data when discussing plural subjects. – Noah Jul 14 '20 at 16:55
  • Try get something off their chest / get something off their chests. But the distributive plural vs distributive singular question has already been well covered. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 01 '24 at 19:29
  • @EdwinAshworth: This was a while ago now, so there's no chance I can remember exactly what I was thinking when I wrote this answer! I see no evidence in my text above to suggest that I gave any serious consideration to the matter of how many of the charted instances might be singular "they". But now I immediately think the reason the chart for *get something off their chest/s* looks somewhat different to the chart in my answer is probably down to the fact that multiple people might have something / be on their chest/s, but get something off* your chest* is usually a "solo" act. – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '24 at 20:43
  • 1
    Rappaport's analysis looks authoritative. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 01 '24 at 23:29
  • @EdwinAshworth: I obviously missed your "Rappaport" answer back when it was posted - an interesting read. I guess I'm agreeing with you when I say the visitors getting something off their chest** is naturally singular because it's a figurative, universal chest (like their singularly toasted health, NOT like their plurally *blown noses*** :) – FumbleFingers Feb 02 '24 at 00:33
  • ...but I don't know so much about You should have seen the expression* on their faces. Singular expression* sounds oddly "literary / poetic" to me (and I think it's stretching a point to say they all had the same expression on separate faces). I'd definitely use *expressions* there (and definitely forget about singular *face*, obviously). – FumbleFingers Feb 02 '24 at 00:39
  • If they were virtually identical (eg all guilty looks), I'd use expression (a common trait/property, what Rappaport labels universal, giving the example 'The two women toasted their health'). – Edwin Ashworth Feb 02 '24 at 14:46
0

It is decidedly the Singular Back. This is because it is the therapy that is being evaluated but the results are singular. The children are not grouped or lined up as in a race to see who can move. The plural children is only used to describe the percentage of those who are able to move. Each child moves only on his or her own back, no other, Singular.

Elliot
  • 5,371
  • From a logical standpoint, I would support singular, but language is not always logical. Suppose it was one child. You would still use 'their' as in "After the therapy, one child became able to crawl/move on their back". So this can clearly be the singular they/their. Dutch will use singular in this setting (for the mentioned reason in this answer), but my English feeling says 'plural'. My guess is that language is fuzzy here and that grammar professors will have a firm opinion, which may or may not reflect reality. – gctwnl May 26 '23 at 20:44
  • No. The distributive singular and distributive plural are both acceptable. In individual cases, one or the other will be more popular, but patterns are complicated (see the duplicate). – Edwin Ashworth Feb 01 '24 at 19:31