Is “et al. [1]” used as a singular or plural subject?












1















I've checked out a similar question, but to the best of my knowledge, it only tells me that "Name et al." is used as a singular subject since it refers to the authors, but what if the “et al..” part is followed by the citation of their article? I found the following sentence in a journal paper:




Gomes et al. [7] also outline a greedy method for finding feasible solutions...




So how should I use something like "et al. [1]" in the end? I'm really confused now.






grammar grammatical-number latin







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  • I think you misunderstood the answer to the question that you cite.

    – Damila
    19 hours ago
















1















I've checked out a similar question, but to the best of my knowledge, it only tells me that "Name et al." is used as a singular subject since it refers to the authors, but what if the “et al..” part is followed by the citation of their article? I found the following sentence in a journal paper:




Gomes et al. [7] also outline a greedy method for finding feasible solutions...




So how should I use something like "et al. [1]" in the end? I'm really confused now.






grammar grammatical-number latin







share|improve this question

























  • I think you misunderstood the answer to the question that you cite.

    – Damila
    19 hours ago














1












1








1








I've checked out a similar question, but to the best of my knowledge, it only tells me that "Name et al." is used as a singular subject since it refers to the authors, but what if the “et al..” part is followed by the citation of their article? I found the following sentence in a journal paper:




Gomes et al. [7] also outline a greedy method for finding feasible solutions...




So how should I use something like "et al. [1]" in the end? I'm really confused now.






grammar grammatical-number latin







share|improve this question
















I've checked out a similar question, but to the best of my knowledge, it only tells me that "Name et al." is used as a singular subject since it refers to the authors, but what if the “et al..” part is followed by the citation of their article? I found the following sentence in a journal paper:




Gomes et al. [7] also outline a greedy method for finding feasible solutions...




So how should I use something like "et al. [1]" in the end? I'm really confused now.






grammar grammatical-number latin




grammar grammatical-number latin






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited 18 hours ago







Mark

















asked 21 hours ago









MarkMark

405146




405146













  • I think you misunderstood the answer to the question that you cite.

    – Damila
    19 hours ago



















  • I think you misunderstood the answer to the question that you cite.

    – Damila
    19 hours ago

















I think you misunderstood the answer to the question that you cite.

– Damila
19 hours ago





I think you misunderstood the answer to the question that you cite.

– Damila
19 hours ago










1 Answer
1






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oldest

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2














Et alii means "and others", so it would make sense to treat Gomes and others as plural. Note that et al. is not used for et alius ("and another"), since Gomes et alius is barely or not at all shorter than Gomes and Samuel: it is only used when there are three or more authors in total.



On the other hand, Gomes et al. can stand metonymically for the text by Gomes et al., which would be singular; so a case can be made for treating it as singular.






share|improve this answer
























  • So both singular and plural usages can be valid depending on context?

    – Mark
    18 hours ago











  • @Mark Singular usage would be rare. It would be for the case where you have a plural subject being treated as a singular, like "Strunk and White says you shouldn't do that", where "Strunk and White" refers to the textbook by that pair of authors rather than to the authors themselves.

    – tchrist♦
    10 hours ago













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1 Answer
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1 Answer
1






active

oldest

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active

oldest

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active

oldest

votes









2














Et alii means "and others", so it would make sense to treat Gomes and others as plural. Note that et al. is not used for et alius ("and another"), since Gomes et alius is barely or not at all shorter than Gomes and Samuel: it is only used when there are three or more authors in total.



On the other hand, Gomes et al. can stand metonymically for the text by Gomes et al., which would be singular; so a case can be made for treating it as singular.






share|improve this answer
























  • So both singular and plural usages can be valid depending on context?

    – Mark
    18 hours ago











  • @Mark Singular usage would be rare. It would be for the case where you have a plural subject being treated as a singular, like "Strunk and White says you shouldn't do that", where "Strunk and White" refers to the textbook by that pair of authors rather than to the authors themselves.

    – tchrist♦
    10 hours ago


















2














Et alii means "and others", so it would make sense to treat Gomes and others as plural. Note that et al. is not used for et alius ("and another"), since Gomes et alius is barely or not at all shorter than Gomes and Samuel: it is only used when there are three or more authors in total.



On the other hand, Gomes et al. can stand metonymically for the text by Gomes et al., which would be singular; so a case can be made for treating it as singular.






share|improve this answer
























  • So both singular and plural usages can be valid depending on context?

    – Mark
    18 hours ago











  • @Mark Singular usage would be rare. It would be for the case where you have a plural subject being treated as a singular, like "Strunk and White says you shouldn't do that", where "Strunk and White" refers to the textbook by that pair of authors rather than to the authors themselves.

    – tchrist♦
    10 hours ago
















2












2








2







Et alii means "and others", so it would make sense to treat Gomes and others as plural. Note that et al. is not used for et alius ("and another"), since Gomes et alius is barely or not at all shorter than Gomes and Samuel: it is only used when there are three or more authors in total.



On the other hand, Gomes et al. can stand metonymically for the text by Gomes et al., which would be singular; so a case can be made for treating it as singular.






share|improve this answer













Et alii means "and others", so it would make sense to treat Gomes and others as plural. Note that et al. is not used for et alius ("and another"), since Gomes et alius is barely or not at all shorter than Gomes and Samuel: it is only used when there are three or more authors in total.



On the other hand, Gomes et al. can stand metonymically for the text by Gomes et al., which would be singular; so a case can be made for treating it as singular.







share|improve this answer












share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer










answered 20 hours ago









CerberusCerberus

54.3k2120208




54.3k2120208













  • So both singular and plural usages can be valid depending on context?

    – Mark
    18 hours ago











  • @Mark Singular usage would be rare. It would be for the case where you have a plural subject being treated as a singular, like "Strunk and White says you shouldn't do that", where "Strunk and White" refers to the textbook by that pair of authors rather than to the authors themselves.

    – tchrist♦
    10 hours ago





















  • So both singular and plural usages can be valid depending on context?

    – Mark
    18 hours ago











  • @Mark Singular usage would be rare. It would be for the case where you have a plural subject being treated as a singular, like "Strunk and White says you shouldn't do that", where "Strunk and White" refers to the textbook by that pair of authors rather than to the authors themselves.

    – tchrist♦
    10 hours ago



















So both singular and plural usages can be valid depending on context?

– Mark
18 hours ago





So both singular and plural usages can be valid depending on context?

– Mark
18 hours ago













@Mark Singular usage would be rare. It would be for the case where you have a plural subject being treated as a singular, like "Strunk and White says you shouldn't do that", where "Strunk and White" refers to the textbook by that pair of authors rather than to the authors themselves.

– tchrist♦
10 hours ago







@Mark Singular usage would be rare. It would be for the case where you have a plural subject being treated as a singular, like "Strunk and White says you shouldn't do that", where "Strunk and White" refers to the textbook by that pair of authors rather than to the authors themselves.

– tchrist♦
10 hours ago




















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