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If you have something like:

Get the name(s) of all users.

Should name be singular or plural?

The way I see it, each user has only one name, so it could be singular, but you will be getting many names, one for each users, so it could also be plural. Anyone know what is the proper way?

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  • 1
    Also, is it "each user" or "each users"?
    – Didier A.
    Oct 18, 2012 at 17:37
  • "Get the name for all the users" would make sense, as would "Get the name of each of the users". "Get the names of all users" means "Get all the names that can be attributed to the users"
    – user84614
    Jun 3 at 4:25

2 Answers 2

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When used with the word all, the plural is preferred in order to match the plural users:

Get the names of all users.

With the word each, the singular is preferred in order to match the singular user:

Get the name of each user.

However, even in this latter case, some people would accept or prefer names. There is not a hard-and-fast rule in this case, though in general English speakers err on the side of using the plural.

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  • "Get the name of each user. However, even in this latter case, some people would accept or prefer names. There is not a hard-and-fast rule in this case, though in general English speakers err on the side of using the plural." Strongly disagree; they would err on the side of using the singular and that would be the only correct choice. Most people would only use plural if they had multiple names.
    – user84614
    Jun 3 at 4:25
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You want names, so names is correct. Consider 'age' instead of 'name'. You may ask for the age of all kids in one grade at school, but you would ask for the ages of the kids from all grades that do music.

And definitely each user.

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