grammatical number - singular/ plural in the attributive



A doll house or a dolls house? Which is correct for the toy? ... There's that thing called Same Sex Couples Act; how about calling it Same Sex Couple Act?


The question is - when should I put attributives in plural? As far as I remember, Bill Bryson claimed in his Dictionary of Troublesome Words that - and that's what I vaguely recall from my classes - attributives should be in singular. Except for some exceptions. If so, what are they? I'm looking for some rule of thumb here other than "when in doubt, JFGI", of course.


NOTE: I leave out forms like a doll's house/dolls' house as they're pretty clear to me, as well as cases like The 'Big Boys and Their Motors' Club in which attributives are separate entities.




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