A figure or figures

Question

In case you praising plural number of girl's figure, by saying: "Those girls have .....", which would be grammatically correct?

Those girls have nice figures.
Those girls have a nice figure.

Similarly,
They have good postures.
They have good posture.

These things are so difficult and confusing for me.
Thank you.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

A man after my own heart!

The difference between your two examples is that "figure" is countable while "posture" is usually not.

So "They both have nice figures and good posture" is the most common way to express it.

"They both have a nice figure and a good posture" is not exactly incorrect, but I'd call it "lower register."

In considering two guys for a job, you could say, "They both have a good attitude," and nobody would fault you for it. "They both have good attitudes" would be better.

Since "attitude," like "posture," may be countable or uncountable, you could also say, "They both have good attitude."

But "They both have good attitudes" is more common than "They both have good postures." How's that for "confusing"??

Something like "poise" is rarely used as an uncountable: "She has a good poise."

(But it's possible.)

And you cannot say, "She has nice figure."

Cbsteh · Answer

I think both

Those girls have nice figures.
Those girls have a nice figure.

are correct depending on whether the writer is referring to individual body figures/shapes that are seen as "nice" (sentence 1) or just to mean a single collective of "nice" figures/shapes (sentence 2).

Chris

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you Avangi and Chris.

A figure or figures

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