Learn English – “Removals Service” or “Removal Service”

meaning-in-contextusageword-usage

Take for example the tag line: "reliable removals service".
Is this correct grammar/usage? Or should it be just "removal", singular?

To me, "removals" seems more correct because it is describing removals in general and would include jobs that remove multiple items(house contents, furniture etc). And this is the type of company I am describing(house, apartment, office removals etc, but also including single items..)

Whereas "removal service" singular would suggest to me that it's more for jobs involving removal of single items, or some type of specialist service. For example "piano removal service".

I'd really like to hear from you if you know which is more correct. I have seen both used for the type of service I am describing – even on the same website the plural and singular seem to often be used interchangibly.

Best Answer

The noun removal is being used as a noun adjunct to service where it acts as an adjective, describing the service.

It is normal to use the singular in this case, even in with words that are generally always plural, hence "a trouser press" rather than "a trousers press". There are exceptions, particularly in British English, but they're mostly derived from forms that were originally using the plural possessive (e.g. "writers' group" becoming "writers group") rather than starting out as a noun adjunct. They're also something that many would criticise as bad grammar.

So we have coffee shops, not coffees shops, video libraries, not videos libraries, pet hotels, not pets hotels, and removal services, not removals services.

The other way to look at it is to just look at what people do. While a google search can find some people using "removals service", but many more using "removal service". Meanwhile this chart compares uses of the two found in books, the blue line is "removal service" and the red line "removals service", which is zero throughout: enter image description here

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