many youth or youths?

[Tan Elaine]

Should it be "many youth" or "many youths"?

Thanks.

 

[Amigos4]

As a native speaker of British English with over 2,000 posts, which do you think sounds correct? ;-)

 

[Tan Elaine]

As a native speaker of British English with over 2,000 posts, which do you think sounds correct? ;-)

I don't understand. I'm not a speaker of British English.

 

[Tan Elaine]

It says in your Member Info:

• Native Language: British English

I checked my profile. It is indeed native language. I tried to change to English, but still cannot resolve the issue.

Could a moderator help me? Thanks.

 

[Tan Elaine]

Back to the questiom. Is it many youth or youths?

 

[bhaisahab]

Almost certainly "youths". What is the context?

 

[Tan Elaine]

Almost certainly "youths". What is the context?

Many youth/youths join the camp.

 

[GoesStation]

Many youth/youths join the camp.

I'm sorry, but that's not a natural sentence. Do you mean Many young people have registered for the camp?

In any case, youth and youths are words that are rarely used outside of journalism. Write young people for everyday use.

 

[Roman55]

I don't find the sentence particularly unnatural.

A youth is a young man. You can't replace that by young people.

 

[Tan Elaine]

I don't find the sentence particularly unnatural.

A youth is a young man. You can't replace that by young people.

It's really confusing. The following dictionary says youth are young male or female people.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/youth
·
· youth noun (YOUNG PEOPLE)
B1 [U, + sing/pl verb] ​young ​people, both ​male and ​female, ​considered as a ​group: the youth of today the nation's ​disaffected youth

 

[Roman55]

That's 'youth' as a mass noun.

As a count noun it means a young man. Look here.