When you are speaking about a number of children, which is the proper plural to use: youth or youths?
According to my dictionary research, both will work... In one definition, American Heritage specifies that "youth" is preferable when discussing a collective, i.e. there may be two "youths" standing in front of the drugstore, but the "youth" of the nation loiter daily...
However, in the secondary definition there is no specification, except to confirm that the "no s" version is used with both s. and pl. verbs.
I see a higher incidence of youth with no s on google...
thank you!
Nah, nah. Â (As you see, I got bored again.) Â "The youth of the nation" refers to the collection of all of them; "the youths of the nation" refers to each of them individually. Â If you had two youths standing in front of you, you would never refer to them as "the youth in front of me"...unless, I suppose, you meant to talk about their youthfulness rather than them.
I am so glad this came up. It sent me back to this wonderful clip from the film My Cousin Vinny Yoots
This clip raises another question. When you form the plural of youth, do you leave the th unvoiced (thin, thank) with an -s sound on the end, or do you change it to voiced (this, them) with a -z sound on the end?
Vinny clearly prefers the voiced version in his careful pronunciation.