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Sat 26 Sep, 2015 01:24 am
Could I use female and male? (not females and males)
-This theory refrained from seeing ___ as being suppressed by __.
I think the answer is no. The plural forms must be used: if you have parallelism in the sentence like The difference between male and female is big., it is possible to use singular noun forms, but not when male and female are far apart. Do you agree?
You could use the singular forms in such a sentence. I don't understand what you mean by female and male being "far apart." I could not thin of an example of such a sentence.
Now that i think about it, i'm sure you're wrong. One might well write, as an example: Among most species of birds, the male has gaudy, ostentatious plumage, for mating display; the female has drab plumage, the better to hide from potential predators. I'd say that male and female are "far apart" in that sentence, or else i don't know what you mean by "far apart."
Thank you for the answer. It's my fault that I did not give a clearer explanation:
Could I use female and male? (not the female and the male)
In the example sentence you gave, you have 'the' for 'female' and 'male'.
@WBYeats,
If you don't use the definite article, then you must use the plural form: males have, or females have, etc.
@Setanta,
Excellent answer. Thank you.
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