Q: Does one say, “Many do not know their home address?” Or is it, “Many do not know their home addresses”?

A: The singular form address is correct. Compare statements like, “Many three-year-olds can tell you their correct age.” In the context quoted, address is a collective noun. When a group is thought of as an entity, it is considered a collective noun and expressed as a singular, but when a group is thought of as individuals, it is expressed as a plural. (Compare, “The address of government informants is kept secret” to “The addresses of government informants are kept secret.”)

Some other collective nouns are: jury, audience, army, class, corporation, company, department, faculty, majority, and minority. Collective nouns take singular verbs. “The jury is out”; “The audience is seated; “The faculty has voted.” But if you want to emphasize the group as individuals, use the plural verb. For example, adding the word persons might change your sentence to, “Many persons do not know their home addresses.

Then there are Latin plural nouns, like media and criteria and alumni, which are not collective nouns, but are frequently treated as if they were. Their singular forms are medium, criterion, and alumnus. But because Latin is no longer studied in schools, the singular forms are often overlooked, and the plural forms are used with singular verbs. Even women who object to “sexist” masculine nouns and pronouns, like he/his, proclaim on their bumper-stickers, “I am a proud alumni of the University of ....,” happily unaware that they are describing themselves as two or more males.

Q: I wonder about an odd sentence construction that seems to have taken hold among educated and uneducated speakers. This morning I heard it in the response of the CEO of a pharmaceutical company to a reporter's question. The CEO said, “Our key goal is we're trying to have on hand an adequate supply [of the flu vaccine].” Is that grammatically correct, and if not, what is the appropriate way to state it?

A:Other readers have submitted questions about this “new” construction, and I answered a similar one in the November issue of “Language Tips.” As anyone who has had to parse (diagram) sentences in an English class immediately notices, the quoted construction is not grammatical English. Not only is it redundant; it doesn't parse.

From Orland Park, Attorney Roberta C. Conwell objected to my preference for the pronoun he in my October column. She wrote, “I am sorry to inform you, but the English language sneaked off and got that sex change without your permission. ... New words come into existence all the time. So why not a new use for an old word? ...The brain squeeze comes when you have to choose between grammatical correctness (and sounding archaic) and going with the politically correct flow! ... I remember in law school we had a class on how to alter the natural flow of language to cover the gender thing. Way too unnatural.”

Most readers may agree with Attorney Conwell. If you have no idea what she was talking about, re-read the October “Language Tips.” Then send me an e-mail with your comments.

In the December “Language Tips,” I re-sponded to a question a reader had sent, asking what the expression as such meant. After reading my answer, another reader wrote suggesting that I should have included another meaning. She was right. The phrase as such is also sometimes equivalent to per se, with the meaning: “with respect to its inherent nature.” An illustration of this use would be: “As such, your comment is relevant.” However, as such is distinguishable from per se in that per se appears at the end of the statement: “Your comment is relevant per se.”

Chicago attorney Jeffrey Liss, who disagrees with a comment his wife made about a “Language Tips” column, contributed his definition of marriage: “That stage of life when you begin to lose a lot of one-to-one votes.”