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720dreaming: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 45; Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2008 9:55 pm; Thanked: 4 times

by 720dreaming » Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:43 pm

Also Agree with B (with the comma for many of the above reasons). Wondering if Cattle's is also wrong here...doesn't that imply 1 cattle?

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logitech: Legendary Member; Posts: 2134; Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:26 pmFollowed by: 25 members; Thanked: 237 times; GMAT Score:730

by logitech » Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:54 pm

720dreaming wrote:Also Agree with B (with the comma for many of the above reasons). Wondering if Cattle's is also wrong here...doesn't that imply 1 cattle?

Cattle, colloquially referred to as cows! And surprisingly it is not a collective noun!! so you can not treat it as a singular noun. My roommate is a native English speaker and I asked him whether cattle is plural or singular. He automatically said: oh it is plural

He knew that it was plural but he did not know why...

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Stuart@KaplanGMAT: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3225; Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:40 pmFollowed by: 614 members; Location: Toronto; Thanked: 1710 times; GMAT Score:800

by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Sat Dec 20, 2008 12:10 pm

logitech wrote:
720dreaming wrote:Also Agree with B (with the comma for many of the above reasons). Wondering if Cattle's is also wrong here...doesn't that imply 1 cattle?
Cattle, colloquially referred to as cows! And surprisingly it is not a collective noun!! so you can not treat it as a singular noun. My roommate is a native English speaker and I asked him whether cattle is plural or singular. He automatically said: oh it is plural He knew that it was plural but he did not know why...

Correct - "cattle" is just a fancy way of saying "cows", so it's a plain old plural noun (like geese or hippopotimi). You'd never say "a cattle" (without adding something on, anyway), so it can't be singular.

"A herd of cattle" would be a singular collective noun.

"Cattle's" is also correct. We only do wacky things with possessives if we already have a plural noun that ends in an "s". For example:

noun: cows
possessive: cows'

as opposed to a singular noun that ends in an "s":

noun: bus
possessive: bus's

which looks wacky, but is correct!

Stuart Kovinsky | Kaplan GMAT Faculty | Toronto

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