The other day, while going through The Ghost and the Christmas Spirit after it came back from the editor, I kept finding places where the “s” had been left off reindeers. You know…plural, more than one reindeer.

Before you laugh at me, let me say I was fully aware that deer is used if I am talking about one deer or a hundred deer. But for some reason, reindeers sounded right to me.

After coming across the second reindeer with a missing s, it suddenly dawned on me—my editor changed these! Why?

A quick Google confirmed what I was beginning to suspect, reindeer, like deer, is used for one or eight tiny reindeer. Although in my defense, Clement Clarke Moore writes it “rein-deer,” as opposed to reindeer. Which in my convoluted mind, is some sort of excuse for my obvious denseness.

When Googling reindeers, I came across one page where it claimed the misused reindeers as plural has resulted in some dictionaries including it as an option. And I did find a couple off-beat dictionary sites where it listed both reindeer and reindeers as plural. It didn’t make me feel any better—still felt rather lame. Another reason why I really do need my editor.

6 comments on “Editors—saving me from myself…

  1. Susie

    LoL I guess that makes 2 of us. I always put the “s” as well.

    1. Bobbi Holmes Post author

      Glad to know I am not alone! LOL

  2. deancat

    One reindeer, two reindeer, red reindeer, blue reindeer?

    Seriously, even with an M.A. in English, I find myself unsure over grammatical points all the time. They do say English is a very difficult language. We generally don’t notice because it’s our native tongue…don’t notice till some sticky grammatical or lexical point crops up. On the other hand, there are people who never even notice such points. Surely, it’s better to be unsure than never to think about it at all.

    1. Bobbi Holmes Post author

      In my younger more naive years I believed grammar and punctuation was was something like an exact science…ha! Tell that to two editors giving me a different answer to the same question! But I try!

      1. deancat

        LOL Let that be a lesson to you never to ask more than one editor.

        1. Bobbi Holmes Post author

          haha…that is usually in writer’s groups where I ask the group about what is the right way, and several writers who are also editors will not always agree!

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