[Grammar] Faces/face

Dear teachers,

What should I use, face or faces?
“Even though we've changed and we're all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our FACE, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends.”

It may seem illogical, but most native speakers would use 'faces' here.

You are speaking to the collective "we"
so use either one. But the verb must agree:


the smiles spread across our FACES,

the smile spreads across our FACE,

susiedqq said:

You are speaking to the collective "we"
so use either one. But the verb must agree:


the smiles spread across our FACES,

the smile spreads across our FACE,

Click to expand...

That's right, and if we check, we find that it's written either way. Neither way is 'illogical'. There is a reason.

Thank you for posting.:-D:up:

susiedqq said:

You are speaking to the collective "we"
so use either one. But the verb must agree:

the smiles spread across our FACES,

the smile spreads across our FACE,

Click to expand...

Your second one sounds strange to me. Perhaps it's a BrE thing. Swan (Practical English Usage) writes, "After a plural possessive we do not normally use a singular noun in the sense of 'one each'.

The teacher told the children to open their books. (NOT ...[STRIKE]their book[/STRIKE].)"

fivejedjon said:

Your second one sounds strange to me. Perhaps it's a BrE thing. Swan (Practical English Usage) writes, "After a plural possessive we do not normally use a singular noun in the sense of 'one each'.

The teacher told the children to open their books. (NOT ...[STRIKE]their book[/STRIKE].)"

Click to expand...

The assumption that native speakers look to Swan on how to use English is an absurd one.

Soup said:

The assumption that native speakers look to Swan on how to use English is an absurd one.

Click to expand...

I recently started looking at Swan to understand the language, grammatically speaking I guess and to a far lesser extent how to use the language as well. Some of the speaking habits I have are not necessarily accepted in every situation so it's not always a bad idea to refer to a grammar book occasionally.

Not a teacher.

susiedqq said:

You are speaking to the collective "we"
so use either one. But the verb must agree:


the smiles spread across our FACES,

the smile spreads across our FACE,

Click to expand...

Dear teachers,
So this means that it should be "She reads book." and not "She reads books."?

thanks in advance...

mamen said:

Dear teachers,
So this means that it should be "She reads book." and not "She reads books."?

thanks in advance...

Click to expand...

She reads books.
She reads the books....

She reads a book ....
She reads the book ....


Not a teacher.