Please have a look at the following example.
The shops on the high street see a customer drop.
The shops on the high street see customer drops.
Which one is grammatically correct?
Thanks.
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Kevin
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Does this answer your question? Do you pluralize the singular possessions of / items or people associated with individual members of a plural group? – Edwin Ashworth Feb 13 '21 at 18:55
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Thanks. It is related, but this is more about the common way to express the situation. Which one would you prefer to say? – Kevin Feb 13 '21 at 19:05
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1I've checked Google Ngrams and (not to my surprise) find flatlines for both 'shops seeing a customer drop' and 'shops seeing customer drops'. (Even dropping 'shops' gives zero returns.) And there seem to be no hits for the originals on Google either. I have to deduce that 'neither is idiomatic'. 'A drop in customers' seems to outperform the more logical 'a drop in number of customers', the ratio being about 5 : 2. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 13 '21 at 19:17
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Thanks very much! – Kevin Feb 13 '21 at 19:25
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Both are grammatical, but a customer drop is more natural.
More natural still is a drop in customers. I wouldn't say customer drop.
Colin Fine
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