When Bad Grammar Happens to Good People

CHAPTER 7

Puzzling Plurals

We do a good job using the correct singular and plural forms of most nouns, because the process isn’t tricky; you just add an “s” or an “es” or an “ies” to make the plural form. But a few words that come to us from Latin and Greek don’t follow the normal pattern. As a result, their singular and plural forms are often confused or unknown.

76. Media

Don’t Say: The media is protected by the first amendment. Say Instead: The media are protected by the first amendment.

Here’s Why: It hardly seems fair that a dead language causes trouble for us in English. “Media” is plural, of Latin origin, referring to a group of vehicles through which ideas are communicated. The singular form is “medium.” So in the example sentence, ...