Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[shoetie]

Dear teachers:

I found that when I use compound nouns like "women students," I have to use both words in plural way, but when it comes to "woman suffragists," only the latter word uses in plural way. what is the different?

Thank you for your explantion in advance.

[redset]

We use men and women in plural compound nouns as a subject - so 'women students' refers to women who are students, 'men drivers' refers to men who drive etc. We use man and woman as objects in plural compound nouns - for example 'man-eaters' are animals who eat people (man often means human and not male).

A suffragist is a person who fights for suffrage (the right to vote), so woman suffragists technically means people (of any gender) who fight to give women the right to vote - they campaign for women's suffrage.

That said, I think many people really mean women suffragists (the subject form - women who are fighting for suffrage), and they're just using the wrong form. They're probably taking the singular (woman suffragist) and just changing the second word to make it plural. This is fairly common in informal speech - I searched Google for "woman drivers" and got around 100,000 results (and Google asked if I meant women drivers )

[shoetie]

Thanks you for your reply. I was confused by compound nouns for a while, and I finally know how to use it right.

I agree with the compound noun, women students, in both plural way, this makes more sense.

Again, thank you.