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I know that "children" is a plural noun and "birthday" is a countable noun, but I saw this sentence in a book:

Children have a birthday cake at their birthday.

Why is "children" (which is a plural noun) followed by "a birthday cake" instead of by "birthday cakes," and why is "their" followed by "birthday" instead of by "birthdays"?

Sven Yargs
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raya bemani
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  • In AmE, children have a birthday cake on their birthday. The larger issue is that regardless of the number of children, each child only has one birthday in a year, so you can say birthday to refer to each child's birthday, or birthdays to refer to the aggregate of the birthdays of all the children. There is a duplicate question but I am having a hard time finding it. – choster Sep 13 '15 at 17:38
  • You could say "Children have birthday cakes on their birthdays." and nobody would think twice. However in the "Children have a birthday cake on their birthday." sentence, the intent is to specify that each child of the aggregate usually only has one birthday cake per birthday. – Tonepoet Sep 13 '15 at 21:10

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