"At both ... level" or "at both ... levels"?

Forums: Grammar, Plural Form
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Hi,
I was wondering which is correct:
The plan works at both the institutional and the governmental level
or ...works at both the institutional and the governmental levels?
The latter seems correct to me, but I do see some examples of the former type. Thank you very much.

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@flydog,

Both levels.

1 Reply

@flydog,

Both is plural. Use 'levels'.

1 Reply

@flydog,

Either:

The plan works at both the institutional and the governmental levels

The plan works at the institutional level and the governmental level

2 Replies

@PUNKEY,

Thank you!

0 Replies

@centrox,

Thank you for the explanation.

0 Replies

@centrox,

centrox wrote:

Either:

The plan works at both the institutional and the governmental levels

The plan works at the institutional level and the governmental level

Yeah, I agree, although I would probably go with "level." That's because you're really just talking about one level, which various things may share. Level in the general, abstract sense, not really discrete particular levels.

For example, 500 airplanes can all be at the same "level" of 60,000 feet. That wouldn't make the elevation be "levels."

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@centrox,

Thank you!

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@layman,

layman wrote:

, although I would probably go with "level." That's because you're really just talking about one level, which various things may share. Level in the general, abstract sense, not really discrete particular levels.

Here we are talking about levels which are different, just as basement level and roof level are different, or janitor and CEO levels are different.

1 Reply

@centrox,

centrox wrote:

layman wrote:
, although I would probably go with "level." That's because you're really just talking about one level, which various things may share. Level in the general, abstract sense, not really discrete particular levels.

Here we are talking about levels which are different, just as basement level and roof level are different, or janitor and CEO levels are different.

Well, they could be different, but not necessarily. It could be the same level, that's not clear. Like I said, I think you could look at it either way.

But, really, the main reason for the choice I said I would make is that this seems, to me, to involve "Level in the general, abstract sense, not really discrete particular levels." I see it as referring to a "level" in a non-literal sense. You might substitute the word "norm" for level here. I wouldn't say "norms" if that were the case, either. Others would, I guess. Either one can be seen as "right." I agreed with you about that.

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@layman,

well, i think there's no ambiguity here given the original sentence contains "both". Both obviously denotes two, so it can't be the institutional and governmental level. It must be the institutional and governmental levels. It doesn't matter if level is used non-literally.

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@perennialloner,

perennialloner wrote:

It doesn't matter if level is used non-literally.

Of course it doesn't. There are various personal, group or organisational levels that one can imagine: personal, family, household, club, company, institutional, government (let us say) which are of differing size and/or complexity.

From a scientific paper:

Quote:

To confirm the strong correlation between Shannon entropy and Fisher information, shown in Fig. 2 are the linear relationships between these two quantities at the molecular (Fig. 2(a)) and atomic (Fig. 2(b)) levels, whose correlation coefficient is equal to 0.887 and 0.977, respectively.

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@perennialloner,

perennialloner wrote:

well, i think there's no ambiguity here given the original sentence contains "both". Both obviously denotes two, so it can't be the institutional and governmental level. It must be the institutional and governmental levels. It doesn't matter if level is used non-literally.

Suppose there are two planes, call them #1 and #2, both flying at 60,000 feet. Now I talk about the level (levels?) of BOTH plane 1 and plane 2. Which would it be? The word "both" doesn't tell you anything about that.

The fact that there are TWO planes doesn't tell you that they have to be flying at different altitudes, does it? They are simply different planes, that's all you're being told.

1 Reply

Layman, stop digging. Just quit. It isn't about airplanes.

1 Reply

@layman,

It's a completely different scenario. Both plane 1 and 2 fly at the same level. The planes aren't the levels themselves whereas in the case of this question the government and institutions are the levels.

Just take out institutional and governmental from the original sentence. You'll notice it doesn't make sense unless level is plural.

1 Reply

@perennialloner,

Which would be right?

They both have IQ's that place them at the genius level, or

They both have IQ's that place them at the genius levels?

How about:

This rifle is accurate at both ground and sea level (levels)

1 Reply

@centrox,

centrox wrote:

Layman, stop digging. Just quit. It isn't about airplanes.

Are you changing your initial response now? Have you changed your claim to be that "levels" and ONLY "levels" would be proper?

0 Replies

@layman,

Level for the first example. Genius is the level they're both at.

Levels for the second example. The rifle is accurate at two levels, sea and ground.

i think people often don't say levels in speech but technically it's improper to do so.

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"At both ... level" or "at both ... levels"?

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