The usage of singular and plural has always been confusing for me.
I often see sentences like these
- People are using cell phones.
- People are using a cell phone.
Does the first sentence mean everyone has a phone and they are all using their own?
Does the second sentence mean they are sharing one cell phone?
If I see a group of people holding a cell phone in their hand(s), <- even this is confusing for me, should I use the first sentence then?
Another example: you see two men, and both of them are carrying a bag. Which sentence should I say/use?
- They are carrying backpacks
- They are carrying a backpack
Could you please make it clear for me?
Best Answer
This aspect of grammar is called the distributive plural. Swan in Practical English Usage (p530) has the following discussion:
Quirk et al. in A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (p768) list two similar examples:
and agree with Swan that "... the distributive plural is the norm ...".
But the CGEL goes on to state that:
The CGEL concludes its discussion as follows:
Turning to the OP's example, the speaker has a 'number choice'. While, according to Swan and Quirk, the plural is the more usual form (People are using cell phones), the singular (People are using a cell phone) can also be used 'to focus on individual instances'.
As for the recipient of the message, their world-knowledge will most likely lead them to interpret both sentences identically, namely that each person is using his or her own single phone. People don't usually use more than one phone at a time, and people even less usually jointly and simultaneously use a single phone.
The same reasoning applies to the backpack example. Our experience of the world tells us that people almost always carry a single backpack and almost never share the carrying of a single backpack.
It is incumbent, therefore, on the maker of the message to anticipate when our real-world experience may lead us to the wrong interpretation or when the message is inherently ambiguous and a correct interpretation is important. In both such cases, the message needs to be phrased in such a way as to be clear to the recipient how many of the items are involved for each of the people.
For example: