Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[iloveyou]

Hello,

Do you use plural
for something as somethings and for nothing as nothigns?

So, the agreement is as follows?
Something is wrong / Somethings are wrong
Nothing is wrong/ Nothings are wrong
Anything isn't wrong/ Anythings aren't wrong

I didn't really came acroos somethings and nothings ...
but I googled it finding some sentences actully using it.
Do native speakers actually say that?

Thanks
Yun

[redset]

The plural of something is some things. Same goes for anything/any things.

Nothing really means 'no thing', or 'not even a single thing' - in this sense there's no need for a plural, because if there isn't a single thing then there can't be more things either! However, if you want to emphasise things (meaning unknown or miscellaneous objects) you would say no things:
'My desk was covered in junk, so I cleaned up. It looked much better; no things taking up space, just my pens and paper neatly arranged.'

We wouldn't usually say 'anything isn't wrong', we'd say 'nothing is wrong'. The exception would be in conditionals - you could say 'if anything isn't wrong, please inform the manager' meaning that you expect everything to be wrong, so if there's anything that isn't wrong you should tell someone. A clearer example would be: 'if anyone isn't in class, please call their parents.' Questions can be formed the same way: 'is anyone not in class?' 'Is anything not where it should be?' You're talking about exceptions, basically.

There are a few exceptions though, as people like to play with language sometimes For example, lovers might whisper sweet nothings into each other's ears. These are phrases you'll just run into now and again. Of course you'll see contractions too (something's = something is) and possessives, some people might mistakenly omit the apostrophes.