Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[BMO]

1. The man with a hat.

Does this mean the man is either wearing it or carrying it, but mostly likely the latter?

If a man is carrying a hat, can I also say the man with a hat?

2. Are "they have coughs" and "they have a cough" identical? I think they are.

[bud]

Hi BMO,

1. It means the man is either wearing it or carrying it, but mostly likely the former. That is only because he is more likely to be wearing it than carrying it.

2. Hmm.. I think the second choice is not grammatical. It means that all of them together have one shared cough, not that each of them has his own individual cough.

Hope that helps.

[Rob]

About the coughs... you still hear the second one all the time, even if it isn't grammatically correct.

[BMO]

Google search:

1. They have coughs -----43
2. They had coughs -------24
3. They have a cough -----440
4. They had a cough -------101

Interesting.

Thanks.

[helen1]

The difference is whether you see 'they' as a group (i.e. the whole) or a group of individuals.

This effect is also noticable with other nouns such as

The committee is meeting on Wednesday
The committee are meeting on Wednesday.

It is therefore the context and the speaker/writers' perspective that determines which grammatical form is appropriate.

In your examples from google

They have/had coughs - Here they are seen as individuals
They have/had a cough - Here they is seen as one -

Hope this is clear and helps.....[/quote]

[BMO]

Yes, this is very clear, and thanks a lot.

[bud]

Ah... so it is ok. Thanks!