Urgent!! "On their behalves" or "On their behalf"?

[SaddyGirl]

Hi, teachers:

I wanna know which one is correct?

"on their behalves" or "on their behalf"??

Why do I hear the latter one more often??

Thanks in advance.

Confused,
Saddy.

 

[mayita1usa]

From everything I can find:

1) on their behalves is acceptable, and probably used more in spoken English than in writing nowadays;

2) on their behalf is the more common way now, but some people still think it sounds ungrammatical.

So - you get to choose which one sounds best to you! OR - you could avoid the problem and say "on behalf of (my cousins/minorities/all Americans/etc.)".

Isn't English fun?!? :roll:

 

[Tdol]

You'll find behalves in some legal texts, but some dictionaries have it down as an obsolete form and in BrE I can't say that I come across it- in fact, it sounds decidedly odd to me. ;-)