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I was reading an article and came across to the following sentence.

Rock fulgurites, found almost exclusively on the peaks of mountains, appear as a thin crust on the surface of rocks.

What I couldn’t understand was why the words 'surface' and 'crust' are singular. As it says the peaks of mountains, I thought these two words should be plural. Can someone explain why they are singular?

Edwin Ashworth
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Atilla Colak
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    This is the distributive singular used to convey a universal concept. Consider "Hold your protractor down with your left hand and mark the angle in pencil, holding the pencil in your right hand, girls" (left-handers having been primed to reverse instructions). Neither 'crusts' nor 'surfaces' is wrong here, but 'crusts' could imply a layered effect (more than one crust per surface), and the three-word prepositional phrase 'on the surface' is so idiomatic that it pulls strongly towards 'on the surface of' here. // The near-juxtaposition of plural and singular takes getting used to. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 07 '21 at 15:23
  • So it would be correct either way, but the author chose to use universal with distributive singular. Is this true? – Atilla Colak Mar 07 '21 at 15:29

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