grammatical number - What is the name for a single item of hundreds and thousands


I was wondering what the singular term for hundreds and thousands was. I believe in the United States these are referred to as sprinkles and a sprinkle makes sense in this case. However a hundred and thousand sounds a bit awkward.


I have attached an image below in case there was any confusion.


hundreds and thousands



Answer



'Hundreds and thousands' is a plural-form non-singular noun, not having a generally accepted term for the individual element. If you were skilful enough to drop just one, you'd say 'I've dropped one' unless you were feeling whimsical. There are parallels: with confetti, the word 'confetto' exists, but it's probably hardly ever used for the bit-of-paper sense. The singular form 'an oat' is rare.


Mass nouns usually take singular concord (milk is / sand is ...), but may be etically discrete (sand) or non-discrete (milk).


The problem 'discrete referent treated grammatically as having no singular' is discussed in this article by Anna Wierzbicka.


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