grammatical number - Is it ok to say “Your barracks is finished”?


In the online game Travian, the following sentence is used:



Your barracks is finished. A good step towards world domination.



Shouldn’t it instead be:



  • Your barracks are finished.


or



  • Your barrack is finished.



Answer



"Barracks" can be either singular or plural.


Plural in the context of "one barrack, two barracks," etc.


But "barracks" could also refer to a COMPLEX of military installations. In that case, "your barracks is finished," means "your military complex is finished," singular.


Yes, it's "computergamese."


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

commas - Does this sentence have too many subjunctives?

verbs - "Baby is creeping" vs. "baby is crawling" in AmE

time - English notation for hour, minutes and seconds

etymology - Origin of "s--t eating grin"

grammatical number - Use of lone apostrophe for plural?

etymology - Where does the phrase "doctored" originate?

single word requests - What do you call hypothetical inhabitants living on the Moon?