Image via WikipediaOkay wordsmiths not eating turkey quite yet today, I have a question of language–more particularly, of singular versus plural in phrases, thusly:
If more than one of them shows up at court, we don’t speak of “attorney at laws” but put the plural on the first time, as it is the person there in more than one-ness: Attorneys-at-law.
But consider the phrase “right of way.” If we speak of more than one, it is not the rights in multiple but the way, the corridor, hence the “right-of-ways are in need of clearing” and not the rights-of-way. To my ear, the latter sounds very awkward.
And yet, in places that would know this kind of thing, I read rights-of-way, so I’m wrong here? Let me know your opinion and also any informed judgment you have based on both common practice or the laws of grammar.
I have to use this phrase repeatedly in something I need to send off soon. Hep me!
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From a non-professional enjoyer of the English language, I would dub “rights of way” to be the correct formal construct. “Right of ways” would be the colloquial. In practice, I would use the former in speaking of a person’s right (the bicycle riders had the rights of way), while using the latter in speaking of property along a road. I read in some learned treatise on use of the English language that one should trust one’s ear. If it sounds right to you, use it! (Unless you are drafting a legal document, perhaps.)
Right-of-way
I found this:
“Either the right to pass over someone else’s property (plural: rights-of-way) or the actual property subject to a right-of-way (plural: right-of-ways)”
at this site: http://www.cepa.com/pipeline101.aspx?page_guid=1A616904-EEA3-4E64-9DB7-9AA08B80EFD3 .
That all fits what I’m thinking, but I do find it quite the other way in common usage–where it is the WAYS being spoken of but the plural is more often used for RIGHTS. Example: http://tinyurl.com/5sppmu Thanks y’all.
I have a dim memory from a class (linguistics?) while in college that the reason it is attorneys-at-law has to do with the origin of the phrase, which I think may be French. The English language is such a huge borrower of words from other languages that it drives native speakers of other languages nuts when they try to learn all of its intricacies.
Phred:
Remember that you are dealing here with legalese, which does not always conform to the standards of proper usage. Legal jargon is like journalistic usage: A language of its own. If you look on legal web sites and those that offer to prepare documents online, the correct usages is “rights of way” if you are dealing with the right to use a road or space for ingress and egress and “right of ways” if you are talking about the actual, physical, space.
Then, again, this is the country and the proper language might be “I want to give my old buddy same there the right to use that stretch of road that runs by the crick and up into the hollow.”
Or something like that.
Websters gives rights-of-way as the first choice and right-of-ways as a second choice, so either is acceptable.
But if you look at Websters’ first and second definitions of “right-of-way,” perhaps you can infer that sometimes one plural is better suited than the other:
“(1) A legal right of passage over another person’s ground.” So if it’s the “rights” involved that are your focus, use rights-of way.
“(2) The area over which a right-of-way exists; the strip of land …” So if it’s the land involved that you’re talking about, use right-of-ways.