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Anonymous Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

The zebra or zebras

Hi. Please help. I think both of these, "the teacher and teachers" and "the zebra and zebras" will work fine and correct in both of these example sentences, with "the teacher" meaning and pointing to all the people in that profession and "the zebra" meaning its species, although the plural "teachers" and "zebras" sound better. Thank you in advance for your help.

1. They look like the zebra except they don't have stripes on their bodies.
2. He is like the teacher in that he often grades test papers.
  

Top answer

Anonymous 1. They look like the zebra except they don't have stripes on their bodies. ~ Each one of them looks like that individual zebra ...

— CalifJim

  • Anonymous 1.
  • They look like the zebra except they don't have stripes on their bodies.
  • ~ Each one of them looks like that individual zebra ...
  • 1b: They look like zebras except ...
  • ~ Each one of them looks like a member of the zebra species except ...
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3 Answers
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Anonymous1. They look like the zebra except they don't have stripes on their bodies.
~ Each one of them looks like that individual zebra ...

1b: They look like zebras except ...
~ Each one of them looks like a member of the zebra species except ...
Anonymous2. He is like the teacher in that he often grades test pape
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Thank you. This might be a little off-topic, but can you tell me if the following sentences with post-modification are correct? I think numbers 2 and 4 bring vividity to the action that numbers 1 and 3 lack due to the person and cat being made definite, that is having the definite article "the" before the words "person" and "cat" respectively. Thank you in advance again for your help.

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#2 and #4 are wrong unless the person and the cat actually existed and recently had those experiences.
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