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Is "family" both plural and singular? or would I have to say families for the plural form? For example, which of these is the best option:

  • "A majority of those whose family were unaware of their sexuality..."
  • "A majority of those whose families were unaware of their sexuality..."
  • "A majority of those whose family was unaware of their sexuality..."

Edit: Here are some full sentences to give some context.

Participants whose famil(ies) were aware of their sexuality were predominantly feminine and identified as gay, homosexual, drag queen, or a combination of these identities. All those who assumed their famil(ies) knew about their sexuality were gay identified and a majority identified as feminine. A majority of those whose famil(ies) were unaware were masculine and identified as non-gay, straight, down low or did not identify with any label.

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  • This cannot be answered unless you give complete sentences; there are too many unknowns. – tchrist Apr 22 '13 at 04:13
  • “Suppose a majority of those whose family were unaware of their sexuality decided to give them party invites anyway.” — sounds a bit formal or old-fashioned, but is still grammatical. However, you can no longer distinguish singular from plural there in that particular example, because we’ve lapsed into the hypothetical were, wherein both are the same. This is why actual complete example sentences are required. – tchrist Apr 22 '13 at 04:17
  • possible duplicate of Is "staff" plural? – tchrist Apr 22 '13 at 04:19
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    @tchrist: How so? Surely *those* should always be plural, so of OP's three alternatives, only *families were* really works. FWIW, "those whose mothers were":58300 hits in Google Books; "those whose mother was": 7490 hits. – FumbleFingers Apr 22 '13 at 04:23
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    @FumbleFingers Not necessarily. “Let only those men whose wife has given him permission to go overseas without her step forward.” You do not wish to suggest that each man has several wives, after all. :) – tchrist Apr 22 '13 at 04:25
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    @tchrist: Each of us must have their own opinion, I guess. Presumably you find that example acceptable, but it seriously rankles with me. I'd have to change it to “Let only those men whose wives have given them* permission to go overseas without them step forward.”* Applying them to both the men and their wives is pretty crappy, but to me it's better than trying to force those into singular. In practice, obviously, I'd look for a less problematic way to phrase the whole concept. – FumbleFingers Apr 22 '13 at 04:39
  • @FumbleFingers I really do not understand why you think what I wrote is making those into a singular. It isn’t doing that at all. The picture is far from clear-cut. – tchrist Apr 22 '13 at 04:47
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    I have added more examples to clarify the question. Thanks for the feedback! – Kwi Apr 22 '13 at 12:44
  • I don't know the answer, but this is really a question of agreement. In other words, does "a majority of those whose" (plural) take a plural noun ("families") or a singular noun ("family"). Is it grammatical for a plural noun to possess a singular noun? Or, if they're all plural, is it potentially confusing (grammatically if not logically) and sounding like a person has multiple families?

    (The question of whether to use "was" or "were" will depend on whether "family" or "families" is used.)

     – Dave Apr 22 '13 at 13:13
  • @tchrist: Your goal/goals example doesn't seem relevant, since one or many people can have one or many goals. But ordinarily one man only has one wife. Thus "Let only he* whose wife has given him permission...", or "... they whose wives have given them permission..."* Maybe you don't have a problem with it, but I really can't endorse your "...those men whose wife has given him permission..." version. – FumbleFingers Apr 22 '13 at 15:29
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    @FumbleFingers I guess it then comes down to the question of distributive plurals. Should all men touch their right hand to their nose, or their right hands to their noses? There are arguments to be made in both directions there, but I don’t expect anyone to be convinced. Suffice it to say that both styles are readily found in the wild. – tchrist Apr 22 '13 at 15:48
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    @tchrist: It seems to me there are two different "pluralities" involved in "...those men whose wife has given him permission...". To my mind, translating that into the "noses" version gives "all men should touch his right hand to his nose", but presumably you see things differently (I can't believe anyone would accept my "translated" version, but that's what I end up with if I follow what seems to be the logic of your original). – FumbleFingers Apr 22 '13 at 18:33
  • I find the singular rather uncomfortable here as well, but not as much as in tchrist’s “Let only those men whose wife has given him permission …” sample. That to me ends up sounding like there is a group of men who all have the same wife, and this wife has given permission to some other, previously mentioned man to do something. “A majority of those whose family was unaware” to me raises the ambiguity of whether there was in fact more than one family—all the people mentioned might be siblings or cousins and have the same family, after all. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 17 '13 at 11:25
  • Neither using the singular consistently nor the plural consistently works here. Singular: "A majority of those whose family was unaware of his sexuality..." Ugh ... that "his" really grates, even if you're only talking about men. Plural: "A majority of those whose families were unaware of their sexualities..." Ugh ... pluralizing "sexualities" there sounds terrible. – Peter Shor Aug 17 '13 at 17:41
  • @tchrist: For "all men should touch their right hand(s) to their nose(s)", I think both singular and plural work. But your suggestion translates to "all men should touch his right hand to his nose". *No!* You can't say that. So for your example, the most singular it can be is “Let only those men whose wife has given them permission to go overseas without her step forward.” I think that works fine if you accept the singular they. If not, I think you have to pluralize everything. – Peter Shor Aug 17 '13 at 17:49

1 Answers1

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Now that you've provided the complete context, I think it is safe to say two things.

  1. Whichever variant works best for the last sentence in isolation — and it is easy to imagine that all three do, depending on dialect and register —, since the construction is repeated in the other two sentences, you'd be well-advised to pick one variant that fits them all, and stick to it throughout. If nothing else, it's at least good style.
  2. The variant that works best in the first sentence is "Participants whose families were". Why? I have no why, other than It Just Sounds Right™. But when hard-pressed, I might paraphrase this answer to a closely related question: "Plural, because we are, in fact, dealing with several families. A participant has a family, but participants have families."

So the whole text would read:

Participants whose families were aware of their sexuality were predominantly feminine and identified as gay, homosexual, drag queen, or a combination of these identities. All those who assumed their families knew about their sexuality were gay identified and a majority identified as feminine. A majority of those whose families were unaware were masculine and identified as non-gay, straight, down low or did not identify with any label.

I for one find that unexceptionable English. As a bonus, you also sidestep the whole issue of family being singular in American English, but plural in British English. That is, what you get works in both.

And, to quote that other answer once again, "I'm sure others will back me on this".

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