Submitted by alekseyvaneev  •  February 10, 2009

Using plural in the title

I’m still undecided on how to spell correctly: “Drum Track Recording Service” or “Drum Tracks Recording Service”. I’m personally voting for the second variant, but as I’m not a native English speaker, I’m not sure.

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Bill  (unregistered)

February 11, 2009, 8:59am

Well, typically a place that sells records (quite plural indeed) is called a "record store," not a "records store." That's because someone can get one record, a single unit. If drum tracks are always plural, then you should make the company name plural. But if it's possible for someone to record one drum track, which seems far more likely to me, then you are talking about a drum track recording service.

Incidentally, this title is as descriptive as "plumbing service" or "place to get alcohol." I would consider coming up with something more creative if this is intended to be a company name.

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Aleksey Vaneev  (unregistered)

February 11, 2009, 9:04am

Thanks, it's not a company name - it is a name of one of company's services.

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porsche

February 11, 2009, 9:43pm

In Drum Track Recording Service, "drum track" is an adjectival phrase. When nouns are used as adjectives, alone or in a phrase, it is normal for them to be singular, not plural. A doctor for horses is a horse doctor, not a horses doctor. You trim your hedges with a hedge trimmer, not a hedges trimmer. A service that assembles printed circuit boards is a printed circuit board assembly service, not a printed circuit boards assembly service. It doesn't matter how many horses, hedges, or ciruit boards are in question.

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porsche

February 12, 2009, 9:35am

Also, if drum tracks is always plural, i.e., you always record two or more, that doesn't matter. It still is singular. Someone who rotates your tires is a tire rotator. The act is tire rotation, not tires rotation. It's impossible to rotate just one tire, but still it's singular. Of course, I'm referring to the act of switching the locations of the tires on your car, not just spinning them around in place.

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Chris  (unregistered)

February 18, 2009, 2:11am

Yes, most of the time nouns, when serving as adjectives, are singular.

There are exceptions, though: "munitions dump", "operations research" and "weapons malfunction" are but a few. Many of these exceptions have a military origin.

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mach309

May 29, 2009, 10:35pm

A friend of mine and i have been having a bit of a dispute about the proper usage of certain titles. If someone is refering to multiple computers, and the computer is a "Pentium II" i feel that you would refer to them as "Pentium IIs"......as in "Could you please move these Pentium II's to the other end of the room" he feels that it would be refered to as "Pentiums II" "Could you please move these Pentiums II to the other end of the room." Another example of this would be, 2 people working at blockbuster.....and one asks the other to move 10 copies of the movie saw IV to the other end of the store. My friend would argue that it would be proper to say "Could you please move the (saws IV) to the other end of the room".....i would say "could you please move the saw IVs to the other end of the room." this is absoultley killing me because i have no way of demonstrating that he is wrong and if i am wrong id like to be put down more expertly so that i stop freaking out about him correcting me.

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