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The Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University has a webpage about butterflies in which I read the following:

Butterflies, moths, beetles, flies and bees have complete metamorphosis. The young (called a larva instead of a nymph) is very different from the adults. It also usually eats different types of food.

In the second sentence above, “the young” is treated as a singular noun. However, Lexico states that in the usage as “offspring” it is treated as plural. So is the usage on the Museum website incorrect?

David
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Zero to hero
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    It's a mistake. Also, it should be "They usually eat..." It is not well written. – Greybeard Dec 31 '21 at 17:44
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    The entire webpage is terribly written. While this question is arguable, there are a lot of others that aren't. It's bad writing and bad entomology, too. – Phil Sweet Dec 31 '21 at 20:00
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    Does this answer your question? Why do we use "the" followed by "user" in "a window prompts the user to make..."? (John Lawler's contribution. Here, there is also the issue of coordinating number (It also usually eats ...). – Edwin Ashworth Jan 01 '22 at 20:05
  • I should explain why I have edited the title. This is to make the title indicate the point at issue — the young as offspring — which is the particular context the question addresses. I think this is a valid edit of a valid question the answer to which is not obvious and which has evoked different responses. – David Jan 02 '22 at 11:37
  • John Lawler's answer examines the availability of both the Definite Generic (the + Singular Noun: The tiger is in danger of becoming extinct.) and the Plural Generic: (0 + Plural Noun [0 = Zero, the number]: Tigers are in danger of becoming extinct.) in most cases. // Here, it's the definite generic (the young) that is chosen. I'd use 'Butterflies, moths, beetles, flies and bees all have complete metamorphosis. In each species, the young (called a larva instead of a nymph) is very different from the adult. It also usually eats different types of food.' – Edwin Ashworth Jan 03 '22 at 19:30
  • Yes @EdwinAshworth (from the OED): 1978 A. M. Husson Mammals Suriname 251 The young is carried by the mother on her back for a considerable period. 2011 J. P. Rafferty Primates iv. 81 The female [aye-aye] bears a single young. – Dan Jan 03 '22 at 23:08
  • @EdwinAshworth — I don't see any contribution from John Lawler in the question you cited as duplicate, which itself was closed. Could you perhaps check the link to it. – David Jan 04 '22 at 13:04
  • @David 99% of linguisticturn's answer is a quote from JL. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 04 '22 at 19:32

4 Answers4

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Summary

The crux of the question is:

Can ‘young’ be used as a singular as well as a plural noun in relation to the offspring of animals?

In, brief, although plural usage is much more common, the answer is YES.

I shall present evidence for my conclusion and then briefly address the problem with the context of the sentence in question.

Evidence for use of ‘young’ as a singular noun

(a) Dictionaries
Some modern internet dictionaries only have entries for ‘young’ as a plural noun. These include Cambridge, Chambers, and Collins. Oxford is equivocal. The online Lexico implies this, but my copy of its parent OED (1928) has the following example of singular usage from 1759:

“The elephant scarcely produces one young in two years”

Furthermore there is unequivocal support for the singular in Merriam–Webster — pertinent to the specific American English example:

2 : a single recently born or hatched animal — (my italics)

(b) Usage in books related to natural history
I conducted ngram searches for “the young is/are” and “the young is/are called”, and examined the results to find ones with the appropriate context. This confirms the greater usage of ‘young’ in the plural, but provided plenty of examples of singular use, some of which I list below. Certainly some are in older texts and those published in the former British Empire, but I also include more modern ones.

“The young is called middle spotted Woodpecker” — Forster (1817)
“He goat. The young is called ἔριφος — Jones (1825)
“The young is called a fetus.” — US Supreme Court (1832)
“the young is entirely white , and covered with a woolly down” — Wood (1882)
“while the young is mottled and very different in appearance…” (1888)
“The young is now more confident in its movements and usually travels around sitting high on the mother’s back” — Martin (1999)
“after the young is returned to the pouch…” — Tyndale-Biscoe (2005)
“For several days, if the young is detached from the nipple…” — Long (2008)

Problems with the context

There are a couple of mitigating circumstances to explain the poster’s aversion to the singular ‘young’ — something that I have argued is incorrect. The general context in which the second two sentences find themselves contain errors or stylistic awkwardness in the use of singular and plural.

First, all references to the adult insects are in the plural — in the completion of the sentence (…different from the adults) and in the preceding sentence. Although it is not ungrammatical to say, e.g. “The child differs from its parents”, the inconsistent usage appears awkward.

Second, as pointed out by @herisson, the web page on which the example is found contains the indefensible: “The young (called a nymph) usually look like small adults but without the wings.”

David
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  • Geesus, the USSC is going down the tubes. The young is called a fetus. – Lambie Dec 31 '21 at 17:30
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    @Lambie — Those would be the Fallopian tubes? – David Dec 31 '21 at 17:38
  • Good one! :) [filler] – Lambie Dec 31 '21 at 17:41
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    While this is certainly relevant, I think it’s a bit too generous to the author to assume that this type of valid singular usage is intended. Further evidence that the text is poorly written/badly edited shows up in the previous sentence, which shows a clear error in requiring “the young” to be both plural and singular in the same place: “ The young (called a nymph) usually look like small adults but without the wings.” – herisson Jan 01 '22 at 20:41
  • @herisson — Thanks. You may be right in general, although the sentence following the first use is consistent in the singular ("it eats"). I would expect more from a US academic, but perhaps it has been through several hands. I do think the basic question is original and not obvious (I thought the singular use was more common than it is) so I will alter the title of the question and amend my answer. – David Jan 02 '22 at 11:16
  • It says "The young (called a larva..." so it seems to be intended as singular. – GEdgar Jan 03 '22 at 00:28
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In that sentence, I think young should be construed as a grammatically plural collective noun, and the whole sentence should say:

The young, (called larvae instead of nymphs) are very different from the adults

Jack O'Flaherty
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  • I think we should assume the text was in fact written by a competent Anglophone, so although your version is a perfectly acceptable "fix", it's unlikely to be the phrasing the writer intended. It's easy to imagine that the writer simply failed to include a relevant contextually-suitable *noun* (such as "insect") after the word "young" - much more likely than that he somehow "accidentally" switched *larvae* and *nymphs* AND *is* like that (it's still "valid" regardless of the plurality of *adult/s*. Maybe like me the writer was unsure exactly how suitable "insect" is here. – FumbleFingers Dec 15 '21 at 13:14
  • @FumbleFingers It seems the writer may have intended a singular, as you suggest, since they continue It ... eats.... But for me, The young without a noun like insect doesn't work as a singular noun. – Jack O'Flaherty Dec 15 '21 at 13:53
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    No. The 'it' in the next sentence forces the definite (singular form) generic. 'The young (called a larva instead of a nymph) is very different from the adult. It also usually eats ....' See John Lawler's answer for the different possible generic structures, possible assuming no constraints. Of course, larvae / instead of nymphs / are / adults / They / eat is also possible. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 15 '21 at 14:15
  • @EdwinAshworth Then what about the form adults? Your answer says adult. – Jack O'Flaherty Dec 15 '21 at 14:20
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    Yes, of course that would need adjusting (unless more than 1 adult form existed for some species). The original mismatches. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 15 '21 at 14:34
  • Then the adjustment can be made using a plural "they" instead of "it" in the following sentence. – Jack O'Flaherty Dec 15 '21 at 14:38
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    I'd say that "the young" is understood as "the young butterflies, moths, beetles, flies and bees", which clearly requires a plural verb. Syntactically, "the young" is best analysed as a fused modifier-head noun phrase, one where the head and the modifier are combined, or ‘fused’, into the single word “young”. – BillJ Dec 15 '21 at 16:38
  • The young means the offspring. Not the same as the adjective: young butterflies. – Lambie Dec 31 '21 at 17:27
  • The young (called larvae instead of nymphs) are very different from the adults. Why don't you just simplify things? – Lambie Dec 31 '21 at 17:29
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In the context of a zoological article you will find usages like this. If you're reading an article about Mallard ducks you might see "the male has a bright green head", or "the female", "the juvenile", or "the adult". Syntactically they refer to e.g. any given male Mallard in the singular, while practically of course they are conveying a fact about all of them in general.

"Young" as a noun is more often plural (or collective) than singular, but in the light of the above usage I don't see any problem with using it either way — as long as the author is consistent about whether it's singular or plural for at least the duration of a sentence.

hobbs
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It seems that "young" is an adjective1,2 that implies its referent and with whose number it agrees:

Bees have complete metamorphosis. The young are very different from the adults.

A/The Bee has complete metamorphosis. The young is very different from the adult.

1There are many others, e.g. adult.

2It acts almost as a pronoun.

Greybeard
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