A
allthewayanime
Guest
I know that 'arrival gate' is a compound noun and the first noun is usually in the singular form, but recently I've come across 'arrivals gate' is this one also correct?
It's usually "waiting room".Thank you.One last question, while visiting a friend of mine at the hospital I came across the target 'wait room', shouldn't it be waiting room?
To me "arrivals" sounds perfectly natural. I am very surprised, though, that any English person would write "examinations schedule" or "books room", even somebody without much education.It should be waiting room. As for arrivals gate, tradition speaks for the singular when a noun modifies a noun, or forms with it a compound noun. In BrE, it is becoming fairly common, however, to accept plural nouns like "arrivals gate." AmE is more conservative on this matter, and such things sound very unnatural to most speakers here.
While living in Hong Kong, I saw loads and loads of examples such as: "examinations schedule" or "books room"; many were just errors due to speakers of another language, such as Cantonese, but after a while, I noticed that quite a few of these oddities (to my ears) were in fact penned by expat Brits.
I've asked about this once or twice on these forums, and can confirm that many BrE speakers are less particular about this phenomenon than AmE speakers. Things change.
Interesting. 'Examinations schedule' seems possible to me, but 'books room'? - Never!To me "arrivals" sounds perfectly natural. I am very surprised, though, that any English person would write "examinations schedule" or "books room", even somebody without much education.
It may be that because many airports have large signs reading "ARRIVALS" and that because people call these gates, the term "arrivals gate" has become fairly common; it doesn't sound that bad to me either.
Arrivals gate sounds OK to me, for the reason you state.
I have to say that it sounds fine to me - perhaps for a similar reason to that given by konungursvia for 'arrivals'.But Departures gate sounds wrong.