Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 April 5

= April 5 =

Grammar
Are these sentences correct?


 * She and her family are Catholic.
 * Tom and Ellen are registered as Democrats.

Either way, could someone explain how? Slightlymad 11:59, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, they're both fine. Is there any particular part you weren't sure about? In the case of the first, "she and her family" is plural so takes the plural form "are". You could put "Catholics" instead of "Catholic" but I think "Catholic" is better. In the case of the second, you could put "registered Democrats" without the "as", but again I prefer your version. --Viennese Waltz 12:22, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * On the "Catholic" vs. "Catholics" issue; it depends on whether you mean to use the adjective or noun. "She and her family are Catholic" is using "Catholic" as an adjective to describe "She and her family".  "She and her family are Catholics" is using the word "Catholic" as a noun, and since "She and her family" are plural, you'd need a plural noun.  You can replace the word "Catholic" or "Catholics" with adjectives or nouns that don't have the same word playing both roles to see how these works.  For example, you can say "She and her family are both poor", but not "...are both poors*", because "poor" is never a noun.  Likewise "She and her family are doctors" makes sense, but never "...are doctor" because "doctor" is never an adjective.  -- Jayron 32 12:51, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Jayron means, of course, that "She and her family are Catholic" is using "Catholic" as an adjective. If it had been "catholic", that'd be a different adjective with a different meaning. --69.159.62.113 (talk) 05:57, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * not necessarily. in the texting era, the use of capitalization is rather casual. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:29, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * In formal English, people are more careful with what they write. If they mean Catholic as in Roman Catholic Church, then they will capitalize the C. In texting, people are lazier and use emojis. 140.254.70.33 (talk) 16:05, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I wonder what a Catholic emoji would look like? Generally, when folks say "catholic" or "Catholic" they mean "Roman Catholic" unless they are using it in a very specific way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:00, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Probably the "Roman" qualifier is more common in the UK to disambiguate with Anglo-Catholics. Alansplodge (talk) 08:06, 8 April 2018 (UTC)