trouble with plural form

Question

Using singular or plural should be easy, but it has been very tough to determine which one to use.

For example: I have a collection of movie(s).
If I use movie - I have a collection so it's singular.
If I use movies - I have more than one movie. <--- movie is singular or plural here?

As you can see, asking questions raises more questions. Please can someone enlighten me?

Thanks greatly

- Xsi

Komountain · Accepted Answer

My two cents:

The word 'collection' connotes collecting more than one item.

[a collection of + plural nouns] is the right way to say.

If you have collected many many many movies, you can say, "I have a large collection of movies."

I hope this helps, Xsi.

Xsi · Answer

thanks!

CalifJim · Answer

The confusing part is that it's plural after "of" but singular if it occurs before the noun. Thus, "a collection of movies", but "a movie collection", "a collection of stamps", but "a stamp collection".
CJ

Komountain · Answer

Good point, CJ.

In some cases, however, plural forms are used. I don't know why.

Here are some examples: telecommunications company/public works project/road works crew.

CalifJim · Answer

"telecommunications" as a field of endeavor is a singular, like "politics" and "economics". (Nobody is going to say, "I work in telecommunication"!) So in that case it is not a plural before the noun. I think a similar argument can be made for "works".
In any case, I was restricting my remarks to the use of the word "collection" since I saw no absolutely universal extension of the idea to other collective nouns.
What would be really interesting is to find out which collective nouns have the exact same patterns as "collection", and which ones don't. Maybe there's a pattern there to be discovered.

CJ

Komountain · Answer

Good tips.

Thank you, CJ.

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