grammaticality - Is "breaths" grammatically correct?


In some books, I see the use of the word "breaths" in the phrase "they held their breaths". Is this correct? And if it is, should I go by the Ngram (below) in spite of grammaticality?


http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?content=held+their+breath%2Cheld+their+breaths&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3


Or are both correct? (If so, I would go with the more popular "held their breath".)



Answer



The singular form is correct in this context:



Bob and Alice held their breath.



As is:



The crowd held its breath.



But "Bob tried to quiet his breaths" would also be correct.


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