My Bellows Is Fine

Thinking caps on: Is the noun "bellows" singular or plural? Should it be, "My bellows ["is" or "are"] fine and dandy"??? -jeff buckels (albuquerque nm)

Hi Jeff,

 

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I'll leave the formal definition to the linguistics experts, but I

vote for:

 

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My bellows ARE fine.

 

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Bellows seems to be one of those confusing nouns, like pants, that end

in an "s" and use plural verb forms (my pants ARE blue - not my pants

is blue) even though they refer to a single item.

 

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Of course, it gets even more confusing. We do call them a PAIR of

pants after all. Why, I don't know - looks like a single article of

clothing to me. My shirt has two sleeves, but I don't refer to it as

PAIR of shirts. And I use the singular verb when talking about my

shirt (my shirt IS blue). Now socks - they make sense. I buy them,

wear them and refer to them (my socks ARE blue) two at a time - they

truly are a PAIR of socks.

 

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I guess as long as your bellows is/are fine, that's all that really

matters no matter how you say it.

 

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Kerry

Is your scissors fine too? I'd vote for "are."

Is lens singular or plural? You can have a twin lens reflex, but can

you have a single len reflex? Why do you drive on a parkway and park

in a driveway? Things like that just baffle me.

While we're on the subject, how come we say 'he', 'his' and 'him' but

not 'she', 'shis' and 'shim'? Cheers, DJ.

I think I may have an answer here. I'm looking at one of the

refernce books I have left over from my last journalism class,

<u>When Words Collide, A Media Writer's Gude to Grammar and

Style</u>, and on page is the following bit of text...

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<blockquote>

<b>Collective Nouns</b> Their singular fomrs denote a group of

people or things- for example, <i>jury, herd, athletics</i> and

<i>politics</i>. They can be troublesome for subject-verb

agreement. If the noun is considered as a whole, the verb and

associated pronouns are singular: <i>The <u>jury has</u> returned its

verdict.</i> If that unit is broken up or considered individually,

the plural verb is required: <i>The <u>herd</u> of cattle <u>have</u>

scattered because of the dust storm.</i> </blockquote>

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Now then, I personally feel that the word <i>bellows</i> falls into

the former category, and therefore would call for the use of singular

verb forms and pronouns. This especially makes sense if you consider

the term <i>set of bellows</i>, which is generally interchangable

with <i>bellows</i> and which would also necessitate singular verb

forms and pronouns.

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Those are my thoughts on the matter, anyway...

Hmmm.....looking at the title I do believe I misspelled a word. I'm

not quite sure what a "gude" is....

Him bellers am fine, also else ils dandy.

It is my understanding that "bellows" is plural.

A "bellow" is a flexible connector with a pair of folds.

If you have more than a pair, then you have plural pairs - therefore

many "bellows".

 

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I vote for "bellows ARE..."

I finally looked it up in the dictionary. It lists bellows as a noun

and can be used singular or plural. That's odd. It gives "bellow" as

a seperate listing. Bellows has its own listing. That's all the

bellowing I am going to do on this subject, unless someone were to

bellow about the condition of my bellows, which is/are o.k. on all

but one of my cameras which have bellows.

 

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regards,

This singular definition of bellows is troublesome. It looks like it

is improper to refer to a "bag bellows," which should be called just

a "bag" (no folds). And if you have one of these and a regular

bellows, are they bellowses?

All the elucidation has been very aluminating. Pat

Being of foreign mother tongue, no wonder I agonized over this issue!

...And "fish" is plural if you're referring to a number of them of

unspecified species, but you use "fishes" to refer to multiple

species. Or something like that.

 

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And "cow" can either refer to the species, <i>or</i> refer only to the

female of the species "cattle." Interestingly, there is no singular

form of "cattle."

Hey, at least you know that it's a bellows. There's a guy who often

posts on ebay (I think he buys and resells restored view cameras) who

CONSISTENTLY calls them "billows". I find this quite funny. Yeah, I

know, I'm easily amused.

Of Cows and Bellows -- While the word "cow" is the term for the

female of the bovine species (as well as a few others), you would get

a few raised eyebrows, even here in Montana, if you exclaimed to a

rancher, "My, you sure have a lot of bovines in your field!" Now

bellows is another matter, although bovines are known to bellow.

Using my Montana guide to linguistics, I suggest using the

term "stretchy thingamajiggy" when referring to this camera part in

order to avoid confusion with loud cows. Matt.

Matt: If you have more than one, would it be "stretchy

thingamajiggys" or "stretchy thingamajiggies"? I never can keep it

straight. Thanks for the research in your Montana Linguistics.

 

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Regards,

"Stretchy thingamajiggy" if applied to male anatomy would be

singular. Pat

Pat, you are too funny!

For those of you that are confused as to why pants are named as

such, have a look at the "Rolling Stone" cover that features Britney

Spears...

One of my favorite cover shots to be sure...

Well folks,

I am truly humbled at your mastery of the English

language. Who was it said we are a nation divided by a common

language?

 

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Anyway, in Yorkshire bulls bellow and cows low! 'Bovine' is half of a

nasty disease that badgers are reputed to spread and cattle used to

be seen only on weekend matinees such as 'Rawhide'.

 

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As for my own bellows - well they is fine, certainly at 105mm, but I

am replacing them anyway to prevent possible embarrasment when my

super new ancient long lens arrives.

 

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DONNA@leefilters.com quotes £80 - ($120 and dropping)inclusive, to

replace my 'Baby' Linhof 6x9 leather bellows with synthetic. This is

far less than I had expected and I just wanted you all to share that

fact!

According to Webster's Tenth Collegiate Dictionary, 'bellows' is a

plural noun, but is singular or plural in construction. Before

you "vote for 'are,'" gentlemen, think how that sounds.

 

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Person A: "I think the bellows on my camera has a light leak."

Person B: "I think the bellows on my camera have a light leak."

 

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Personally, I think person B sounds silly. Yes, we know that the

instrument in question is, in fact, a series of folds, and thus

constitutes a plural thing. But in common parlance, we do not refer

to the individual pieces, but rather to the collectivity - the

bellows - that they form.

 

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Yes, "Fish" and "Deer" are words that are both singular and plural,

but they are conceptually different. We have just cause to refer to

an individual fish - we may need to point out the one in the school

that has red fins while others have blue, for example - or an

individual deer, but we have no reason to refer to only one of the

folds in a bellows, which is why it is an "it," not a "they." If we

needed to point out the defect in one spot, we would refer to, say,

the 6th fold OF the bellows as a whole, we wouldn't call it "the 6th

bellow."

 

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One last note: the letter 's' does not necessary denote plurality.

When the court orders you to appear, you receive a summons, not a

summon.