Should I use "your support" or "your supports" when talking to two or more people?

Question

In this instance, I am referring to two people, so the your is plural. My question is if I should use "support" or "supports". Support can be talking about the collective aid of many people, and supports can be talking about multiple people's individual aids. To me, I can't really see a difference. Here, "everyone" is referring a group of people that includes the two people who might pledge their support, the speaker, and about fifteen other people who don't have anything to give, but who will also benefit from this idea being proposed.

I'm thinking of either using

"If I can get both of your support(s), I would like to propose an idea that will work out in everyone’s favor."

or

"If I can get your support(s), I would like to propose an idea that will work out in everyone’s favor."

It sounds better in my opinion to say the first one with an "s" and the second one without. It's the word both that makes support sound better with an "s" to me. Is this the rule?

Does this answer your question? "They're using a cell phone" vs. "They're using cell phones" includes 'Do we use the singular or plural? Sometimes, it depends.'
See Jennifer Rappaport's analysis. But 'support' here is noncount. — Edwin Ashworth, Feb 10 '22 at 19:17
No, not really. The problem is with support being noncount as you said. That other question makes me glad I'm a native speaker, though. Plurals are confusing for me and I am a native speaker — Rosy, Apr 04 '22 at 03:51

MarcInManhattan · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-10T17:13:24.950

I assume that you've done research and seen the discussions about multiple items sharing one or multiple objects (e.g.: "On their back" or "on their backs"?). "Support" is a bit different because it can be a mass noun or count noun. However, I think that for the meaning that you intend, it is better considered a mass noun.

In that case, the choice for your second sentence is obvious:

If I can get your support, I would like to propose an idea that will work out in everyone’s favor.

However, the first sentence is a bit trickier because "both of" should not take a singular object. I.e., this would be wrong:

*If I can get both of your support, I would like to propose an idea that will work out in everyone’s favor.

We can fix this with a bit of rewording:

If I can get support from both of you, I would like to propose an idea that will work out in everyone’s favor.

Alright, yeah. I like the second sentence with just support. I feel like the both is not really necessary since the subject is alone with just the two of them. Thank you for answering — Rosy, Feb 09 '22 at 23:18

Should I use "your support" or "your supports" when talking to two or more people?

1 Answers1