"The dead", "The good" - plural?

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Nightmare85

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Hello,
Is this plural?
You cannot kill the dead.
He is one of the good.


Would it be wrong to say:
You cannot kill the deads.
He is one of the goods.
:?:

Are the 1st versions just short forms of:
You cannot kill the dead (guys).
He is one of the good (guys).

:?:

Cheers!
 

bhaisahab

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Hello,
Is this plural?
You cannot kill the dead.
He is one of the good.


Would it be wrong to say:
You cannot kill the deads.
He is one of the goods.
:?:

Are the 1st versions just short forms of:
You cannot kill the dead (guys).
He is one of the good (guys).

:?:

Cheers!
In those sentences "dead" and "good" are adjectives. Adjectives are never plural. (in English)
 

Raymott

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In those sentences "dead" and "good" are adjectives. Adjectives are never plural. (in English)
On the other hand, you use the plural verb forms after them:
The dead don't tell tales. (not "doesn't).
The poor are always hungry.
 

emsr2d2

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This has made me think! I don't pretend to be a grammar expert, despite being a teacher, but I would have said that "the dead" and "the good" were collective nouns, not adjectives (obviously I know that dead and good are adjectives!) Interesting!
 

BobK

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There's also the fact that 'goods' is a possible noun. So in one (somewhat contrived ;-)) context, this would be possible 'He dealt in all sorts of contraband goods: guns, drugs, people... N [a person] was one of 'the goods'.

b
 

emsr2d2

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I'm glad I wasn't going completely mad then!
 

Nightmare85

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Hello,
It's I/me (choose what you want :-D) again.
Sorry for retrieving the old thread.
I have another small question although I'm very sure I already know its answer.
The blue team has 5 blue players.
So you have to say, "The blue played weakly" :tick:, not, "The blues played weakly". :cross:
Well, it should be the same: "The five blue played weakly" :tick:, not, "The five blues played weakly". :cross:
I hope I'm right. :)

I ask because I read such things very often, things like "The reds were stronger" etc.
However, many players don't care about grammar when they chat, especially not in games ;-)

Cheers!
 

corum

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It's I/me (choose what you want ) again.

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It is a bone of contention between prescriptivists and descriptivists. When in Rome, do as the Romans do and say "It is me".

The English are
The wise are

Nightmare, wise and English belong to which (formal) word class? Of course they are adjectives. They are unfaithful adjectives. They are renegades who defy order. They are bad adjectives that give us migraine.

When Quirk says some (= not all) adjectives can be noun-phrase heads, he cuts word classes some slack. These nominalized adjectives have generic reference and take plural concord.

Why are these adjectives strange?

- Adjectives are usually not preceded by a determiner.
- They do not prompt accord in number with verbs.
- Adjectives are usually not noun phrase heads.

We say 'He is wiser', but we do not say 'The wiser are'.
We say 'He is very wise' and we say 'The very wise are'.
However, we do not say 'The very English are'.

The English who like... -- It looks like the relative pronoun has an adjectival antecedent. :shock:

The blue played weakly. :cross:

Remember,

When Quirk says some (= not all) adjectives can be noun-phrase heads,

The reds played well. :tick:
The Englishes played well. :cross:

Looks like English follows French, Hungarian, Latin, etc. grammar sometimes in terms of adjective declension.

Nightmare, you have an extraordinary nose for finding the minefields in English grammar. In your previous life, were you not a detection dog? :)

1171325877_hoyre_500.jpg
 
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mmasny

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- Adjectives are usually not preceded by a determiner.
This statement looks very suspicious to me.
 

corum

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This statement looks very suspicious to me.

I meant determiners that hinge on adjectives and not head-nouns. If you still suspect something, give me an example other than 'the French'. ;-)
 

mmasny

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What are head-nouns?
Examples:
He's the bad guy here.
There are many wise people out there.

The determiners precede adjectives in both.
 

corum

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Examples:
He's the bad guy here.
There are many wise people out there.

'the' determines the reference of 'guy' and not 'bad'. Adjectives usually have no referent.

'many' quantifies 'people' and not 'wise'. 'wise' is not quantifiable.

The determiners precede adjectives in both.

True, but you did not understand my previous post. They do not hinge on the noun of which the noun phrase is a kind.
 

mmasny

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That's right. So you meant quantifying rather then preceding, have I got it?
 

corum

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That's right. So you meant quantifying rather then preceding, have I got it?

No, I meant determiners that qualify adjectives. ;-) Qualify and quantify: they are different concepts.
 

corum

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All determiners qualify, but not all qualifying determiners quantify. Quantify is a sub-set of Qualify.
 

mmasny

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True, but you did not understand my previous post. They do not hinge on the noun of which the noun phrase is a kind.
I did actually guess what you meant. First, I just wanted to correct the word precede you used. Then, I realized I weren't sure what word you'd want. And then I thought that there may be a grammatical idea of precession that I have no idea of. I didn't want to make a fool of myself so I asked this way :oops:
 

corum

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No, you were okay. I should have been more precise.
 
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