If I were to keep a ledger of the number of activities I have completed, would that be an "activities count" or an "activity count"?
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1@FF Shouldn't that be How to write correctly chains of nouns with plurals, like 'messages list' ...?– Edwin AshworthCommented Sep 20, 2016 at 19:55
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I'd go for activity count, taking my cue from headcount . Another example from news articles is death count. Even more common is character count
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3To quote @Matt Gutting, "Hi! What we're really looking for (on this or any other Stack Exchange site) is a supported answer; one that you can support with authoritative references...." Giving an opinion backed by favourable examples doesn't work well when counterexamples exist (admissions count; members count ...). While I'd actually endorse your choice here, the subject has been covered before. Commented Sep 20, 2016 at 19:50
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1Sometimes, a usage based answer is better. You cannot beat an example like
word countwith any amount of verbiage. The problem with reference citing is ,countless answers end up with literalistic dictionary quotes. If we follow them, we'll end up neglecting nuances which are the very soul of English language. Look here for a great example. english.stackexchange.com/questions/49476/…. Only one person has caught the problem with that answer-- "ambivalent' applies to less-significant options"– R.S.Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 3:56 -
A usage-based answer is almost always better. What I'm saying is that English is idiosyncratic. One would speak of a donkey sanctuary, but would never speak of a dog home. You almost always need to examine the idiomaticity of the particular example. A good answer would look at the relative frequencies of occurrence of '[an] activity count' and '[an] activities count' in a reasonable corpus. It would also indicate that studies show that the singular-form attributive is usually preferred (which is done in the duplicate). Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 10:12