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Neither British nor French can be used as a singular noun. For example, (a) is ungrammatical.

a. *A French/British is dancing.

Although the French/British can mean 'French/British people' collectively, French/British is usually analyzed as adjectives. For example, (b) is grammatical and natural English.

b. The French/British are struggling.

Can British and French be used as plural nouns, meaning 'British people' and 'French people', respectively, outside the construction The French/British?

For example, is (c) grammatical and natural? How about (d)?

c. A lot of French/British are dancing.

d. Several French/British are dancing.

listeneva
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2 Answers2

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No, French and British cannot be used as plural nouns. Generally, you cannot use an adjective of nationality as a plural noun if there is already a different noun for a single person of that nationality.

So for example, you cannot say:

Three Spanish were ...
Three Polish were ...
Three Turkish were ...,

because you would use the words Spaniards, Poles, and Turks, instead. You can, however, say

Three Japanese were ...
Three Portuguese were ...,

because there are no separate nouns for people of these nationalities. See Google Ngrams.

Historically, the noun for British people was Briton and for French people was Frenchman. Today, you could still use Briton, but you might want to use Brit instead, especially if you're speaking informally.

Unfortunately, Frenchman is not gender-neutral, and so probably should not be used today. It's possible that French will eventually replace Frenchmen as an acceptable plural noun, but it hasn't yet. The best current alternative may be

Three of the French were ...

which I don't particularly like, but which is much better than Frenchies, which is often derogatory.

Peter Shor
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  • I'd point out that there's also "Englishman," parallel to Frenchman in your discussion. It's much more common than "Briton," I think. Unlike "Briton," it excludes the Scots and Welsh, but they have their own terms. – David S Sep 08 '20 at 15:40
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The words “British” and “French” can be

(1) nominalised adjectives (compare “The poor are revolting.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalized_adjective), which take a plural verb form or

(2) as common adjectives (a)predicatively: “He is French/British”, and (b) attributively: “They are French wines/British cheeses.”

Adjectives are not inflected, thus all nominalised adjectives act as uncountable nouns, thus a French and a British are not possible.

This differs from the words American and German, etc., in which the words American and German may act as

(1) pure nouns - "Americans/Germans like beer" and "An American/German was elected," or

(2) adjectives - "I like American/German beer" and "The beer was American/German"

But not as nominalised adjectives:

Compare

The poor like food.

A poor like food. is wrong

The/An American likes food. Here, American is clearly singular.

but

The/An American like food." is wrong.

Greybeard
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  • I'm not asking about 'American' or 'German'. I'm only asking about 'French' and 'British'. Please edit out the irrelevant portion. Also, the only clue in your answer is "all nominalised adjectives act as uncountable nouns", which I guess means that you're saying that (c) and (d) are not possible, are you? – listeneva Apr 10 '20 at 13:23
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    @listenevea - it would be easier for you to ignore the points that you find irrelevant. "all nominalised adjectives act as uncountable nouns" is not a 'clue'; It is an explanation of why "He is a British" cannot be correct. – Greybeard Apr 10 '20 at 13:30
  • Well, I have laid out at the outset that (a) doesn't work for me. So I cannot understand why you would want to explain why (a) or "He is a British" doesn't work. Let me ask you again. Are you saying that (c) and (d) don't work? If so, are you saying that that's because "all nominalised adjectives act as uncountable nouns"? – listeneva Apr 10 '20 at 13:35
  • A quite remarkable misunderstanding... No, I am not 'saying that (c) and (d) don't work.' I was attempting to have you to understand the principle behind your question. – Greybeard Apr 10 '20 at 13:48
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    Please note the general question at the end and that (c) and (d) are example sentences of the question. AFAIK, nowhere in your answer did you address the general question at all, or example sentence (c) or (d). The only thing that I think touches on the general question is "all nominalised adjectives act as uncountable nouns", because you classify British and French in (c) and (d) as "nominalised adjectives". Since they "act as uncountable nouns", you're essentially saying (c) and (d) are wrong, which you just denied in the comment. You lost me. – listeneva Apr 11 '20 at 01:03