A WORD PLEASE
JUNE CASAGRANDE

JUNE CASAGRANDE

I recently got an e-mail from Tracy in Long Beach, Calif., with subject line "The problem with our youth."

Tracy writes: "Actually, the problem is with an old person, who now is confused. Is it correct to say 'youths,' plural?"

Tracy gives an example, which I'll paraphrase as, "We serve youth diagnosed with diabetes."

Tracy then writes, "I think it should be 'youths.' What say you?"

Well, Tracy, one problem with youth and old people alike is that someone, somewhere, somehow told us all that there's only one right choice in situations like these and that therefore we can get them wrong. Another problem with our youth and our old people is that we've all be taught that the answers to these questions are so elusive, so mysterious, so beyond our grasp that only experts have the answers.

So for Tracy, I fixed all these problems in one move: I opened Webster's New World College Dictionary: "youth. … 4. young people collectively; 5. any young person, esp. a young man."

Following definition number four, it's clear that you can say, "We serve youth diagnosed with diabetes." Definition number five makes clear that it's also perfectly correct to say "we serve youths diagnosed with diabetes."

In her e-mail, Tracy also took a stab at trying to understand the issue at play: "Is this," she asked, "one of those words like 'deer' in which the plural and singular are the same?"

It was a good guess and a good question. Yet again, the dictionary could tackle this one at a single glance. At the very beginning of the dictionary definition, we see "pl. youths," making it immediately clear that, unlike "deer," "youth" has a plural form.

And herein, I was able to make myself truly useful. That's because I've spent enough time reading about language to have come across the terms "count nouns" and "mass (or noncount) nouns."

Count nouns are the ones we know best. You could even consider them standard. Defined by "Garner's Modern American Usage," they are "those that denote enumerable things and that are capable of forming plurals (e.g. cranes, parties, minivans, oxen)." Mass nouns are the other kind: "often abstract nouns -- they cannot be enumerated (e.g. insurance, courage, mud)."

It's important to note that many nouns can be both, as is "talk" in Garner's examples "he gave several talks" (count noun) but "talk is cheap" (mass noun).

So, for the word "youth," we had to address two questions: 1. does this word have a plural form, and 2. does this word's singular definition allow it to be used to used for a whole group of things; that is, is it a mass noun?

The answers are yes and yes. Like so many other issues in our language, this word offers great flexibility. It can be a singular describing one youth. It can be formed into a plural to describe two or more youths. Or it can be used as for a whole collective, a whole mass, as the dictionary points out. In other words, lots of ways to be right without much worry of getting it wrong.

Though she had been certain she needed professional help, it turns out that Tracy had the power at her fingertips all along. She didn't have to worry about getting it wrong. But I'm glad she did because, if she had found these answers on her own, right now you'd probably be reading yet another column about any my favorite count nouns: for example, my cats.

June Casagrande is author of "Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies." You can reach her at