plural or singular?

[njanja]

Is it correct to say

their minds,opinions,lives... or their mind,opinion,life... ?

[Johan[@CLT]]

Can you give us a sentence or a context please ?
Until a while a go I had never encountered the word "peoples" so according to me I thought it was a spelling mistake, because I had learned that there is no plural form of "people". I was wrong; Peoples does exsist but it depends of the context.


Kind regards

[MrPedantic]

Hello Njanja

I would agree with Johan that much depends on the context, e.g.

1. Australians have some very peculiar ideas about bowler hats. Here is a book that will change their minds, their opinions, their lives...

2. The people of Zog have a robust attitude towards the people of Qworf. To their mind, Qworfians are mostly feckless individuals with a weak grasp of mathematics. Their opinion of the pygmies of Kzøzj is even less flattering. In fact, you could say that their life consists of nothing more than constant abuse of their neighbours...

In #1, we're dealing with individual minds, etc. In #2, we're dealing with a generic Zoggian mind.

See you,
MrP