singularly plural.

i can’t for the life of me remember how we got on the subject in the first place as i was driving home from kristin’s house, talking to my husband on the phone. but the point is. we got it on. and it was singularly the most confusing conversation of my entire life.

“i’m nobody. and nobody is perfect!” i stated proudly.  (i can’t remember why)

“yep nobody. all of them. because the word nobody is plural.”

“did nobody call?” = plural.
“nobody is perfect” = singular. but since no one is really called “nobody” and the actual phrase “nobody’s perfect” refers to the group…it’s still technically plural. right? right?

the question: is the word “nobody” plural or singular?
alternatively, is the word “everybody” singular or plural?
anybody?
somebody?

c’s argument is that you don’t say “were everybody there?” like you would say “were they there?” so therefore it is singular. fair enough….i agree with him still so far.  

this is one of those questions that make you ponder the meaning of life and why when you see one moose, you say “Oh wow! look! one moose!” but at the same time, when you see 18 of the same animal, you say “oh wow! look! 18 moose”

so is the word singular or plural?

you don’t say “nobodies” or “Everybodies” but the word “Everybody” clearly refers to a group of people. more than one. so…isn’t it plural? or is it singular because you are just referring to one group?

at which point i said to christopher (and this is where the actual philosophical debate began)  ”i think these words all fall under the hermaphrodite category. they are singularly plural. or plurally singular”

“no they wouldn’t be hermaphrodite because that is like saying they are both singular and plural at the same time. but really they are transvestite. because they are plural words dressed like singular words”

but that’s not right. “oh i went to the olympic games. america was there”
does that mean that the physical country was there? or the group of people that reside in america was there? which is it? singular or plural? it’s both. it’s a singular word phrase that refers to a plural subject. “

“no it’s a plural word that is made to appear singular”

:: long silence ::

“honey? are we high? is this what it feels like to be high?”

“yes….kinda….i guess?”

at this point, i had just gotten home and hung up in mid-conversation because he was sitting on the sofa not ten feet from me.

“you hung up. i wasn’t finished.”

i promptly reached for my phone and dialed his number. “sorry dropped call” i said “what were you saying when i hung up?”

“oh wow. there is an echo on the phones. or….lots of echoes”

can you really have more than one echo? isn’t each preceeding echo just an echo of the previous echo making it still the same echo, just echoed again?

can the word echo REALLY be used in the plural sense?!?!?

this is all hurting my head….

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