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I have just seen the following sentence fragment in some new internal technical documentation:

... thereby meaning the Logging thread(s) ha(s/ve) less work to do.

I've highlighted the part this question is about. This pattern appears a number of times in the documentation. While from a technical standpoint it makes sense as it enumerates all the possible permutations, it seems less readable to me.

The target audience is technical but don't all have English as a first language so I would like to make it as easy to read/skim through as possible.

What is the best way to deal with this situation? Always use the plural form? The singular? Something else?

A little clarification based on some of the answers/comments so far: the application in question is multi-threaded and the degree of parallelism is configurable (so one to n). Also Logging was given only as an example. There are other parts that are equally capable of being parallelised, so answers shouldn't focus on the feasibility of multiple logging threads.

Burhan Ali
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    I would avoid the verb altogether. The parenthetical plural -s is quite commonly seen and does not bother most readers. Ha(s/ve) reads like a misconstrued regex search pattern to me. I would say, “… meaning less work to do for the Logging thread(s)” or, “… giving the Logging thread(s) less work to do”. Of course, this might not work in all situations, but where possible, it is certainly preferable to the rather unsightly version in your example. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 26 '13 at 12:08
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    Use the singular to refer to the generic case. Simple as that. Let there be any number of instances of the case at a time. – Kris Nov 26 '13 at 14:03
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    Thank you for making the reader's job easier. She/He/They prefers/prefers/prefer less mental effort in reading sentence(s). – rajah9 Nov 26 '13 at 14:06
  • @Kris "Simple as that" Do you have anything to back that up? The two answers so far say to use the plural. – Burhan Ali Nov 26 '13 at 16:18

2 Answers2

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Use the plural.

If you think it is important to point out that there may be only one because that is the most likely case, then say "...the logging thread or threads are...". However, consider simplifying to just "... the logging threads are..." even here.

If you think it is important to point out that there may be only one because the behaviour you are documenting is different in that case, then make that a separate statement:

... the logging threads are .... In the case where there is only a single logging thread ...

In technical contexts, it can be very useful to be precise as to "One or more threads are ..." or "Zero or more threads are...". The phrase "zero or more" is unusual English in most contexts, but well worth be precise about in technical writing. With both "one or more" and "zero or more" you then treat the subject as plural. Plurality can contain the possibility of singularity in cases like this.

Jon Hanna
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I think you should use what you mean, which in this case depends on the number of the Logging thread(s) you have.

If, in your application, you have only one single Logging thread (which is likely, as a typical computer program should have only a single thread for the logging purpose), you should use the singular form.

On the other hand, if your application has multiple threads for the logging purpose (which is less likely, IMHO), you should use the plural form.

But if the number of the Logging thread(s) cannot possibly be determined in advance, use what @JanusBahsJacquet suggests, add (s) after the noun. To me, this style is quite common. The way I see it, most technical writers seem to avoid a verb in present tense after these with-(s) nouns. Thus, a phrase such as the Logging thread(s) will ..., or the Logging thread(s) will be [verb-ed] ..., or even rephrasing the phrase entirely, is quite common. When it is really unavoidable, some seem to use, for example, there is/are N Logging thread(s) in this process, where N ..., while others seem to use the verb as if the with-(s) nouns were plural, e.g. the Logging thread(s) run before other threads.

EDIT I just found this in Microsoft Manual of Style, 4th Edition. It is clear that, with international considerations, the recommendation is to use plural forms, as Jon Hanna has posted above.

International considerations

Do not add (s) to a word to indicate that it can be construed as either singular or plural unless you have no other choice. Such words may be difficult to translate because not all languages form plurals by adding a suffix to the root word. If a placeholder modifier can result at different times in a singular or a plural noun, use the plural form. A word to which (s) is added may also lead to mistranslation in machine-translated content.

Community
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Damkerng T.
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    Obviously, the point here is that in some situations that the documentation covers, there is one Logging thread, while in other situations, there are more than one. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 26 '13 at 12:04
  • I still doubt if there will be a process in OP's application that has more than one Logging thread. And if so, I still wonder that in what context the Logging threads of more than one processes in the same application will be discussed together, especially when clarity is the goal of the documentation. – Damkerng T. Nov 26 '13 at 12:10
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    Without having the faintest idea what this is even documenting (we don’t know that it’s talking about a single process or application), there is no way to know. There could easily be contexts where specifying that multiple Logging threads are being discussed is important. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 26 '13 at 12:12
  • @JanusBahsJacquet, come to think of it again, I was indeed misled by the Logging thread(s) example. Thank you. PS. I added your suggestion of (s) in my answer too. Hope you don't mind. – Damkerng T. Nov 26 '13 at 13:02
  • (s) has the i18n issue you mention, it also leads to the same problem with number matching the verbs, anyway – Jon Hanna Nov 26 '13 at 14:06
  • I can also think of some cases where multiple logging threads would be reasonable, but that moves into SO territory – Jon Hanna Nov 26 '13 at 14:07
  • I've updated the question with some relevant clarification. The internationalisation considerations are not relevant to my specific case but are certainly very interesting in general and are things that hadn't occurred to me. – Burhan Ali Nov 26 '13 at 16:20