I have a problem forming the correct singular and plural forms of adjective nouns, e.g. (the) old(s), her young(s), (the) red(s), (the) relative(s), (the) saint(s), (the) possible(s), (the) sick(s). Could someone explain or recommend an article?
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1What makes you think they are all adjectives?– BillJCommented Jun 18, 2020 at 14:35
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3 Answers
Two of your examples are not adjectives used as nouns, but simply nouns: "saint" and "relative".
"Saint" is never an adjective. The adjective form is "saintly".
"Relative" is a word with at least two definitions. It can be used as an adjective meaning "considered in comparison to something else". Like, "Bob's house is large relative to my house." But this use is rarely if ever used as a noun. It can also be a noun meaning "a member of a family", like, "My living relatives include my mother and 3 brothers."
But that said ...
Most of the other examples you give are used as collective nouns. For example, we say, "The sick need a doctor", meaning, "Sick people need a doctor." In such cases we use the word "the" followed by the singular form. "The sick ...", "the young ...", "the possible ...", etc.
The only exception I see among your example is "red". If I was talking about some objects that come in literal different colors, pieces of some kind of candy perhaps, I'd probably say, "I like the reds best", not "the red". Similarly, if we're talking about communists, we sometimes call them "the Reds". Frankly I'm not sure why this is different. I'll gladly yield to someone who can explain this special case.
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How about the forms like „sicks“? Could we say „Sicks need a doctor.“? I remember the form „the possibles“ from a novel. How does it differ from the form „the possible“? I understand the form „the possibles“ implies a noun, not an adjective noun. Am I right? How do the forms „the passing“ and „the deceased“ differ from the forms „passing“ and „deceased“? If I want to express singular meaning, do I have to add a noun, e.g. a sick person? Commented Jun 18, 2020 at 16:22
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I have never heard anyone say "sicks need a doctor". Likewise I've never heard anyone use "possibles" as a noun. Obviously I can't say that no one has ever said this, but I can't think of an example. There IS a famous quote from Donald Rumsfeld where he talked about how there are "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns", i.e. things that we realize that we don't know, and things that we don't realize that we don't know. As I said, adjectives used as noun are USUALLY used as uncountable nouns, like "the sick". In the Rumsfeld example, he really need to make it countable to make his point ...– JayCommented Jun 18, 2020 at 21:02
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... so instead of saying "the known" he said "knowns", etc. I'm really struggling to come up with any general rule about when this is "acceptable". Perhaps the "rule" is that if it works as an uncountable noun, that's the "normal", but if you need to make it countable for the sentence to make sense, okay. I'll plead here for anyone who can give a definitive answer to chime in!– JayCommented Jun 18, 2020 at 21:04
In your example the words sick, young, etc all except saint are not changed from singular to plural when used as an adjective to a different noun. The sick person needs a doctor the sick people need a doctor. So the possibility of your sentence meaning a singular sick person, multiple sick people or reoccuring singular or muliple sick people are an included in the sick. A descriptive word used as the noun of a sentence never assigns singular or plural to the statement nor denys its possibility. So there should not be an s for any of those. They r all already plural to include each possible intended noun of the statement
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1Hi, some of your sentence lack proper punctuation. Please put some more effort into your writing to make it legible and understandable. Welcome to ELL!– JoachimCommented Oct 27, 2022 at 19:29
It's simple, when you "noun-ify" an adjective, typically you don't do anything.
He is sick -> I help the sick.
Note that "I help the sick" is a shortcut for "I help whoever is sick" or "I help whoever meets the critieria described by 'sick'" - and if there is a single, known sick person, you would not use this construction. You would instead say "I am helping the sick one."
However, if your "noun-ified" adjective is really short for "X ones" - such as:
Find me all the red socks -> Find me all the red ones -> Find me all the reds
then you would make it plural. This follows the normal English -s/-es rules.
In the rare case that an irregular plural would happen ... I as a native speaker in a casual context would be tempted to not use the irregular form, but in a formal context I would avoid the construction entirely.
In this program I'm looking for all the child elements -> I'm looking for all the child ones -> I'm looking for all the childs.
