收到朋友的電郵，問以下句子文法是否正確：
Students should bring a bottle of water.
驟眼看，以為朋友在發瘋──好端端的一個句子，有甚麼問題？細心想，才明白朋友的疑惑。她大概以為，students 是眾數，a bottle of water 應改為 bottles of water 才匹配吧？
在未回答朋友的疑問前，請先看看以下選擇題：
The children are blowing their (nose / noses).
不知各位會選 nose 還是 noses？文法大家 Swan 選了 noses (參考 Practical English Usage, distributive plural 條)。是否選 nose 便是錯？非也！因為每人只有一個鼻嘛！若說 The
children are blowing their noses，會讓人產生錯覺，以為每個小孩有數個鼻，是異形的同類呢！
要是栗對鼻子的理解沒錯，那 Students should bring a bottle of water 便是百分百正確。寫句子的人，是想讓學生每人帶一瓶水；若寫成 Students should bring bottles of water，學生可能會誤會，以為每人要帶幾瓶水！
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後話1：其實只要谷歌一下，便會發現 Students should bring a bottle of water 有2,490個相符句子，當中有 .edu 的網址！
後話2：PEU 有另一例 Tell the kids to bring raincoats to school tomorrow。栗認為這裡用眾數確實較佳。不過此乃直覺，沒有經典可援。
Good Morning, 小栗!
回覆刪除This is not a big grammatical mistake, if any. But to avoid confusion, I suggest we write this way :
1. Each student should bring a bottle of water; or
2. Students should bring a bottle of water each.
By the way, I side with Swan on the "noses" example.
The Gorilla has the right idea. "Students should bring a bottle of water" is actually the lazy version of "Students should each bring a bottle of water", therefore the object is singular. Like Chinese, English expressions have many hidden words. One of the more common one is "God bless you". Ever wonder why nobody says "God blesses you"? In fact, the latter would be wrong...
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I'm with Gorilla on "noses", unless the context is such that the object is obviously meant to be a collective one in a fixed expression, like "The French took on the Germans, and promptly got their [ass] kicked", instead of [asses].
Gentlemen: Many thanks for your elaboration!
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