Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Marrion]

[1] Each of the apartments has its own private entrance.
[2] Each of the apartments has its own private entrances.

In the American Heritage Dictionary, [1] is correct, but [2] isn't correct, because at this sencence we should not use "entrances" as a plural noun.

But...................
In another Dictionary

[3] Each member of our garden club had his own special interests.

It is said that [3] is correct.

Why???

Why is [2] not correct? And why is [3] correct?

I don't know why.

[ann marquez]

Hi Marrion.

The word "each" must be looked at as only one of something, which in this case, is an "apartment." Since the apartments are not lumped together as a whole, but as individual units, the definition is saying that there is only one private entrance to every apartment.

Example 2 is incorrect because a single apartment would not have more than a single private entrance (at least, most do not).

With the garden club, each person in the club probably does have more than one special interest. Here, the word "each" refers to "member" which is a person, and a person will have many interests.

The English language can be confusing at times. I wish you well

[Marrion]

Thank you very much^0^







May you be in happiness AlWAYS!!^0^//

[lotus]

An extraordinarily great response, Ann.

Welcome to the forum.


--lotus