Grammar of verbs for nouns with "(s)"?

Subject: Grammar of verbs for nouns with "(s)"?
From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
To: Technical Writing <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 10:09:51 -0500

Tom Johnson wondered: <<In my user interface, I have a confirmation
message that says, "Success! Your meeting(s) have been deleted." The
"(s)" makes the subject singular or plural. This leaves me wondering
whether "have" is grammatically correct. I'm not even sure what the
(s) is called. Any help here?>>

Ideally, the interface should be smart enough to choose the correct
noun-verb combination (singular for one deleted meeting or plural for
two or more) based on the user's actions, but that's never gonna
happen. <g> But in defense of this suggestion, this communicates what
has happened far more clearly than the current solution: users should
be told unequivocally what happened (one item deleted or more items
deleted) to provide feedback on what they just did. I've deleted more
than one file by mistake, and would have appreciated the warning that
I didn't just delete the one file I wanted to eliminate. Why not
provide similar feedback for meetings?

The "(s)" is called an atrocity. <g> Well, perhaps that's too strong a
word. But it's lazy and inherently equivocal. If you can't persuade
the programmers to provide clear and correct feedback, at least make
the ambiguity explicit <g>: "The meeting or meetings that you selected
have been deleted." An argument could be made for deleting the word
"success", since the disappearance of the meeting from the view should
provide clearer feedback that the deletion succeeded. But I don't
suppose the word hurts.

--------------------------------------------------------
Geoff Hart (www.geoff-hart.com)
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
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References:
RE: Grammar of verbs for nouns with "(s)": From: Sean Brierley

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