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In a masters thesis I was proofing for a client (on the topic of radio astronomy) he titled one of his sections "Multiple Antennae Arrays."
Now that seems redundant to me, since either "Multiple Antenna Arrays" or "Antennae Arrays" pretty much accurately describes the technology of multiple linked radio telescopes. "Antennae" is already plural.
I should note that he was doing this at Cape Town U, and over the years he's been there he's picked up the British English style and used it in his thesis. I'm aware of some of the differences between BE and AE, but I'm not an expert. Still sounds redundant to me.
I Googled "multiple antennae" and got 34,400 hits, whereas "multiple antenna" yields 383,000. So I suspect that usage is indeed redundant. Any feedback from BE experts most appreciated. Thanks.
The syntax makes it ambiguous: many antennae or many arrays ?
(It would be clearer, and perhaps sound better, with prefix: multi-antennae.)
Regarding redundancy, if you use the word multiple merely as indicator of plurality, then is it not always redundant in any languages that feature pluralized nouns? Then the only time that it is not redundant is when used as emphasis of plurality. (That also means that whenever it appears in English, there should be that intention behind it; so , in other words again, it is never redundant.)
There could be a technical intention here: an array usually denotes a 1-dimensional string or series. So a combination of multiple arrays gives a multi-dimensional matrix. However that term could be subject to varied interpretations .
RobertB asked: The syntax makes it ambiguous: many antennae or many arrays ?
I had to go back and re-read that section to be sure, but no, he's talking about only a single multiple-antenna array. Hadn't seen that ambiguity until you pointed it out. So I like your suggestion of using that hyphen. I'm definitely gonna suggest he change that section title, thanks.
On the redundancy aspect, I'm glad you agree. That was my first impression and the reason for my post. If a noun is pluralized, it shouldn't make any difference regardless of the language. But I've been surprised by British English many times which is why I asked.
Most recently I ran into this usage: I thank my father, who stayed up late helping me with my maths.
Using that plural form of "math" at first looked like a typo to me. But after looking around I discovered that was a British English convention. That, by the way, was from the dedication on this same masters thesis.
Heimhenge said
In a masters thesis I was proofing for a client (on the topic of radio astronomy) he titled one of his sections "Multiple Antennae Arrays."
Would you like to party on a sixty feet yacht? Would you built a six feet fence?
I used to drive past what I presumed was Ohio State's radio telescope (There was no sign). It was antennae in a single 2 x 2 array. If Dennison were to have an Astronomy department, and they were to build a similar radio telescope, and then Muirfield golf course built one, it could be said that central Ohio had three antenna arrays, but I cannot imagine how you could have multiple antennae arrays.
Not impossible. Just exceeding my imagination. Feel free to explain how one would create an array where each element is not elemental.
RobertB said
There are 3 conventions by which a noun is used as attribute: unchanged, pluralized, and as participle:A 66-foot yacht.
A 100-guests reception.
A multi-pronged strategy.
So A multi-antennae array is not so out of the ordinary.
Could you come up with examples in published books? An x-guests reception sounds wrong to me. It appears to sound wrong to other published authors as well. What sounds right, and seems to get published, is n-guest reception. ?
And pronged is not a noun, is it? It would be a multi-prong strategy. Again, we have a problem with a multi-prongs strategy.
I think you've hit upon a key part of the problem. An array of one element isn't referred to as an array, although mathematically, I suppose one could even refer to a zero-element array.
But it's progress, and I'm willing to be convinced that you're right, Robert, if you would care to back up and take another swing at providing examples.
Nouns as attributes are pluralized as often as not. If 100-guests as attribute is not picked up in Google, it is no more peculiar than, say, Guests list, which is ample. In any case, uses in this fashion are all over the place: vehicles safety, weapons systems, jobs training, etc.
I once had a college teacher who confidently taught that pluralizing an attribute is wrong- just don't do it. If there ever existed such rule, it's long been swept away (if ever respected) by popular convention.
More interesting are uses like 3-pronged strategy. Here ed is added to a noun to create an adjective, or what I would call a pseudo-participle. In some cases, it may seem that the noun first became a verb, and then the participle came from there. But there are no lacks of instances where the verb either never came into existence, or did but became too rare or too fleeting to be likely progenitor of the participle. Here're some more:
Pincered attack
Multi-ribbed scaffold
The moneyed class
The privileged class
Dove-eyed girl
Storied exploit
Canopied rain forest
Actually there are no rules or restrictions to keep writers from creating pseudo-participles on the flight , just as long as one would make sense for your immediate purposes. Only that your creation may or may never travel yonder to the popular domain.
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Regarding your point about how numerous the elements are in an array, I am seeing it differently: The singular form of the attribute is not an indication of singularity of that entity. In other words, antenna array still means there are in there more than 1 antenna, because that's the only way it can make sense.
I can not speak to rules on this because I have not been taught such rules, but I would like to say something specifically about guests list. It sounds very wrong. I Googled it and even though I specifically put an "s" at the end of guest, all of the results for seven pages gave something about guest list. I just don't think that guests list is used. It's not that it could not be understood, it's just not the usual way of speaking or writing.
Dick said
I can not speak to rules on this because I have not been taught such rules, but I would like to say something specifically about guests list. It sounds very wrong. I Googled it and even though I specifically put an "s" at the end of guest, all of the results for seven pages gave something about guest list. I just don't think that guests list is used. It's not that it could not be understood, it's just not the usual way of speaking or writing.
Google's search engine is based on word roots. Buffet, buffeted, buffets, are all going to match in a regular search.
The ngram viewer is not based on roots. You get quite different results if you look for buffet, for buffeted, and forbuffets.
Searching in the regular search engine, it doesn't matter if you search for 3-way switch or 3 way switch but inthe ngram viewer, it does.
Nouns as attributes are pluralized as often as not. If 100-guests as attribute is not picked up in Google, it is no more peculiar than, say, Guests list, which is ample. In any case, uses in this fashion are all over the place: vehicles safety, weapons systems, jobs training, etc.
Whether it's plural or not has significance. though. If one talks of the hundred years war, we'rte talking about a specific hundred years (more or less) during which a specific war was fought. If an editorial writer were to say that we want to be careful about military action in the mideast, he's likely to write "we don't want to get involved in a hundred year war" meaning unceasing conflict, rather than cautioning against a hundred years war, which would imply that the combatants and the motives for the war would be the same as well as the duration of the conflict.
Your point about the verbing of nouns is, ahem, "noted". I've read a number of rants about verbed nouns, and I've not felt compelled add my own, partially because I don't see it as a significant problem. Where the meaning is clear to both the writer and the intended audience, and the language is sufficiently invisible that it doesn't disrupt the thinking process, I'd say it's written well. If I'd written "writee" instead of "the intended audience", that would be sufficiently disruptive to fail the second of the two tests. I think we can agree that "multiple antenna arrays" passes the first test, but may not pass the second test, depending on the intended audience. "Pizza pie" is stupid and redundant, but the expression is so common as to be grandfathered in at this point.
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