American English – Why ‘Went to the Movies’ Uses Plural

american-englishsingular-vs-plural

I found this sentence:

We went to the movies last night.

at the following URL: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/movies

Why do they use the plural "movies", why not use the singular "movie"?

Best Answer

In the very early days, movies were very short (about 10-15 minutes), so people watched several movies in a row. Even when feature films were developed, there was typically a newsreel, a short and the feature.

Also, they were originally called 'moving pictures', which quite naturally became 'movies'. 'A movie' came slightly later. (I think people referred to 'a film' before they referred to 'a movie'.)

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