A Word, Please: Sometimes we go with what sounds right, even when it’s wrong

“Scientists have unearthed startling revelations about our Homo sapien forebears,” CNN reported in December.

But is that true? I’d argue no because we don’t have Homo sapien forebears. In fact, there’s no such thing as a Homo sapien. It’s Homo sapiens.

So why did CNN use “Homo sapien” instead of “Homo sapiens”? Probably because it sounded right. And though about 99% of the time your ear is your best guide to good grammar, odd words and unusual forms are exceptions. This is one such exception.

“Homo sapien forebears” sounds better than “Homo sapiens forebears” for the same reason it sounds wrong to say you bought your loafers in a “shoes store” or you took your dog to the “pets hospital.” We know instinctively that “shoe store” and “pet hospital” are the preferred forms.

The more you think about this, the less sense it makes. There is no store that sells one shoe. They all sell multiple shoes. You’d be hard-pressed to find a veterinary hospital that serves just one pet. They all have multiple patients. So why do we use singular “shoe” when it comes in front of “store” and singular “pet” when it comes in front of “hospital”? And how is it even possible that “shoe” and “pet” can modify nouns since that’s the job of an adjective and “shoe” and “pet” are clearly not adjectives?

These are the odd properties of attributive nouns.

In grammar, a word that comes before another to describe it is called “attributive.” This usually means adjectives. In “the gray cat,” the word “gray” is an attributive adjective. But nouns can do the same job. For example, in “the cat toy,” “cat” is modifying a noun that comes after it, so it’s functioning attributively, making it an attributive noun.

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Coffee break. Shrimp toast. Wedding day. There are lots of examples of attributive nouns acting like adjectives in front of other nouns.

Grammarians point out that we do this because we have no choice — or at least, none of the choices offered by other languages. Latin, for example, had a formula for turning a noun into an attributive modifier: You tack on a suffix like “-alis” or “-anus.” English doesn’t have a formula for this. So we cut out the middleman and just use the unaltered noun as an adjective.

But then we do something even stranger: If the noun is plural, we usually make it singular. Hence “knife drawer,” “auto mechanic,” “tree surgeon,” “supply closet” and on and on. None of my reference books explains why we do this or how it came about. They just make note of it.

“It seems that the norm has been to have singular nouns used as attributives — ‘billiards,’ for instance, even lost its -s to give us ‘billiard ball,’” notes Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage.

There have always been exceptions — scissors grinder, physics laboratory, Civil Liberties Union, and mathematics book are among Merriam’s examples. But recent decades have seen a trend toward more plural nouns used attributively: weapons systems, communications technology, operations program, systems analyst, singles bar, enemies list.

“The plural form seems to be chosen to differentiate the meaning of the combination with the plural from whatever the singular attributive might connote,” Merriam writes. This is especially evident in “a singles bar,” which would be less clear if you called it “a single bar.”

Because so many attributive nouns take the singular form even when the meaning is plural, it sounds natural to drop the S: dog groomer, pizza parlor, drug dealer. That’s why “sapiens” sounds wrong in “Homo sapiens forebears.” But unlike “dogs,” “pizzas” and “drugs,” Homo sapiens isn’t plural. It’s singular. So if you drop the final S from sapiens, you’re not turning a plural into a singular like you do for so many other attributive nouns. Instead, you’re just misspelling a word.

June Casagrande is the author of “The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.

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