Suspicion

Question

"The customer's behavior arouse suspicion of the shopkeeper.""The customer's behavior arouse suspicions of the shopkeeper."Should I use "s" in there?

Rover_KE · Accepted Answer

'The customer's behaviour (BE spelling) aroused the suspicions of the shopkeeper' is how I would say it.

Rover

Student4 · Answer

Thank you Rover!

How about these:

"The customer's behavior aroused suspicion."
"The customer's behavior aroused suspicions."

Should I use "s" in there?

Rover_KE · Answer

'Suspicion' is better here.

KrisBlueNZ · Answer

Ignoring the question of SUSPICION vs. SUSPICIONS for a moment, both have the same error, and should read:
"The customer's behavior ~~arouse~~ aroused THE suspicion/suspicions of the shopkeeper."
The sentence is written in past tense, so you need AROUSED not AROUSE, and you need the definite article with either SUSPICION or SUSPICIONS.
The question would be better worded "The customer's behaviour aroused the shopkeeper's suspicion/suspicions".

The distinction between arousing SUSPICION and SUSPICIONS is a hazy one. If you see someone who is wearing dark glasses and a long coat and loitering, you have three reasons to be suspicious, so you might say he arouses three SUSPICIONS, but in another sense, you are either suspicious about someone or you aren't, no matter how many different reasons there may be for you to be suspicious of him, and in that sense you only have one SUSPICION to be aroused, and your suspicion will be aroused in proportion to the NUMBER AND THE DEGREE of suspicious behaviour; the more suspicious the person is, the more your suspicion (singular) will be aroused.
For example, if person A is carrying a butcher's knife in the street, and person B is wearing dark glasses and a coat and loitering, person A will arouse your suspicions more than person B, even though there are more suspicious things about person B (counting by number of suspicious factors).
The only reason behind the choice between SUSPICION and SUSPICIONS, that I can think of, is that SUSPICION is a general word when many people become suspicious (e.g. "Everywhere he went, his balaclava and the bulge in his jacket aroused SUSPICION", meaning suspicion generally amongst people), and SUSPICIONS is probably more appropriate for a single person becoming increasingly suspicious of someone.
In your example, I would probably use SUSPICIONS, but not for any clear reason; either is fine.
Argggh! I've typed that word so many times now that it's starting to look funny!

Student4 · Answer

So, it is:

"The customer's behavior aroused the suspicions of the shopkeeper."
"The customer's behavior aroused suspicion."

Does this apply to "attention"?

"The customer's behavior aroused the attentions of the shopkeeper."
"The customer's behavior aroused attention."

KrisBlueNZ · Answer

After further consideration, I think "The customer's behavior aroused the suspicion (singular) of the shopkeeper" is probably better. Neither option is wrong though.

ATTENTION is similar to SUSPICION in this respect, but different in that the word ATTENTIONS has a specific meaning: "nice things you do for someone", as in "She loved him, and lavished her ATTENTIONS on him whenever they were together". So ATTENTION is the only right answer for both of those sentences.

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