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Veles Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

'Game' - can be singular?

In a video game description: [contains] 'Five types of puzzle game'. Or should be 'games'? The link to set of rules is most welcome.
  

Top answer

"It contains five types of puzzle game," at first glance seems wrong, but it is apparently okay. " The plural sense in these examples is contained in the word "types," with the words "game," "shark," and "test" functioning only as modifiers of the word "types," thus they are not pluralized, indeed it would apparently be incorrect to make them plural, as you would then have a double plural.

— Anonymous

  • "It contains five types of puzzle game," at first glance seems wrong, but it is apparently okay.
  • " The plural sense in these examples is contained in the word "types," with the words "game," "shark," and "test" functioning only as modifiers of the word "types," thus they are not pluralized, indeed it would apparently be incorrect to make them plural, as you would then have a double plural.
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9 Answers
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"It contains five types of puzzle game," at first glance seems wrong, but it is apparently okay. This is similar to when you say "There are five types of shark found along the coast." or "There are five types of test given to new students." The plural sense in these examples is contained in the word "types," with the words "game," "shark," and "test" functioning only as modifiers of the word "t
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Thank you very much for you explanation. Not that I doubt it, but I'd rather see some grammar rule on that. The source of my doubts: http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/grammar-rules-and-tips/irregular-plurals.html
It wouldn't make sense to explain irregularities if 'typ
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Will it go up? I still need some help with it.
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This is officially the hardest question in English grammar!
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Found a page that gives at least two apprehensible explanations... which prove contrary - 'games':
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/29843/types-of-followed-by-singular-or-plural

Any grammar mavens around?? PLEASE HELP!
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I'm a native speaker and I'm doing this by "feel," that is, I know all the grammatical constructions by instinct, having grown up using and hearing the language. And I seem to remember this type of construction, where there is no plural where there seemingly should be one. For example:

"This lab is working on five types of vaccine." This is the correct construction as I seem to recall
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There's something wrong with these examples. 'Breed of dog' sounds solid (whatever context will be). 'Type of vaccine' sounds solid too. 'Types of game'...? 'Kinds of book'?
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My concern is of information behind the words, please consider my examples:
1. In 'Puzzle World' you can play 5 kinds of puzzle games.
2. There are 5 types of puzzle game genre.

What's the difference here:
1. We are talking about games as modules [COUNTABLE] within a product. There could be more.
2. We presume that there's a division of genre [UNCOUNTABLE] into sub-genres.
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What I'm saying is that euphony and the desire for convenience apparently have overridden strict grammatical rules in these situations. "Types of puzzle games," "breeds of dogs," "types of vaccines," etc. are apparently the correct form from a strict grammatical point of view, but in these examples the two plurals in a row are difficult to pronounce, so over the years it has become acceptable to
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