Singular or plural?

Question

Today's youth/youths are tomorrow's adults.Which is correct, youth or youths?

Cool Breeze · Accepted Answer

They are both correct.

CB

Anon-57 · Answer

"Today's youth/youths are tomorrow's adults".

" Which is correct?

" youth or youths?

Answer: " youths " is correct.

In general, the plural form of youth is youths.

When we consider it collective noun, we use the word in singular form (youth) but the verb is plural. For instance, the youth are against the law. Here 'youth' is singular but the verb 'are' is plural. But this is not the case with the sentence . It's a different case. If the subject is plural ( youths), the verb is plural ( are) and the corresponding noun in the predicate is plural in form ( adults). From this point of view, the sentence is ' Today's youths are tomorrow's adults'. Besides, you have given two alternatives 'youth' or 'youths'. We must choose one out of the two alternatives. From this point of view,too, the sentence is 'Today's youths are tomorrow's adults'.So, it is 'youths' not 'youth'.

More examples:

The toys are my companies.( not 'toy')

The books are my friends.( not 'book')

N. B. : 'youths' and 'adults' are grammatically related.

Now, how about the sentence ' Today's youth are tomorrow's adults'?

This sentence is not incorrect because 'youth' is.a collective noun here and it has been used with the plural verb (are) and the noun in the predicate is rightly plural ( adults).

BillJ · Answer

anonymousToday's youth/youths are tomorrow's adults

With only a very few exceptions, the predicative complement and the predicand agree in grammatical number, so the plural predicative "tomorrow's adults" would normally have the plural noun "youths" as predicand.

For those who take "youth" to be a collective noun, "today's youth" is also possible, compare this example with the collective noun "committee":

Today's committee are mainly elderly ladies.

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