Puzzling Plurals Part 1

We do a good job using the correct singular and plural forms of most nouns, because the process isn’t tricky; you just add an “s” or an “es” or an “ies” to make the plural form. But a few words that come to us from Latin and Greek don’t follow the normal pattern. As a result, their singular and plural forms are often confused or unknown.


Media

Don’t Say: The media is protected by the first amendment.
Say Instead: The media are protected by the first amendment.

Here’s Why: It hardly seems fair that a dead language causes trouble for us in English. “Media” is plural, of Latin origin, referring to a group of vehicles through which ideas are communicated. The singular form is “medium.” So in the ex¬ample sentence, when we use the plural form “media,” we need to follow it up with the plural verb “are” instead of the singular one, “is.” There is one case in which many usage ex¬perts are comfortable treating “media” as singular, and that is when the group of vehicles is being referred to as a collective, as in The media has become an institution just like the gov¬ernment. However, you can avoid having to figure out whether a singular sense is acceptable or not simply by treating “media” as plural in every case—then you’ll always be correct. Con¬versely, when you’re referring to just one of the vehicles through which communication happens, remember to use the singular form, “medium.” Here are some correct examples of each:

His preferred medium has been newspapers, but I hear he’s interested in television now.

His preferred media have been newspapers and magazines.

The media work overtime when there’s a big story.

The artist’s medium was pen and ink.

The artist works in mixed media.

There has been a trend lately toward making a plural out of the word “medium” by simply adding an “s” to get “mediums.” One sees this in print from a range of sources, some downright respectable. For example, you might read, He used several mediums to reach his audience. However, this is a recent trend, and most well-spoken folks have been carefully edu¬cated that “media” is the plural of “medium.” So you would be better off sticking to that traditional distinction if you want to be sure that your listeners or readers know you know what’s right.