English term
Crew and crews
Context: talking about more than one captain and more than one crew of several yachts
Ok so I have "captain and crew" for one yacht.
But I am talking about many yachts, many captains and many crew or crews - here is my problem.
I know crew is already a plural word that talks about several people who make up a crew.
But when I want to talk about more than one crew, I have used the phrase "Captains and their crew" making the captains plural and the crew 'belonging to the captain'.
However I also want to talk about more than one crew by using "Captains and crews" for example
"The captains and crews have access to different areas..."
Is this correct? Can anybody see anything wrong with this? Or should it say
"The captains and crew have access to different areas..."
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Jill
| 5 | crew and crews |
Rosemary Schmid
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| 5 +6 | crews |
Jean-Claude Gouin
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Nov 25, 2015 16:26: philgoddard changed "Language pair" from "French to English" to "English"
Nov 25, 2015 17:14: mchd changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Non-PRO (3): Tony M, Yvonne Gallagher, mchd
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Responses
crew and crews
In the described situation, I see these possibilities -
Each captain and crew is assigned a unique code to use.
The captains and their (respective) crews met for the general briefing.
Captains and crews must be prepared to start at 0800 hours.
If one section captain has three crews working around the clock, then it would be possible to say "the captain and the crews."
Canada
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Native in: French 
Works in: French to English, English to French, French, and 1 more.
crews
the captains and their respective crews ...
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Arabic & More
2 hrs
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Merci, Amel ...
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Alain Rondeau
: Correct!
3 hrs
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Merci, Alain ...
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Björn Vrooman
: Just like: staff(s).
7 hrs
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Thank you, Björn ,,,
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| agree |
Tina Vonhof (X)
11 hrs
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Thank you, Tina ...
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| agree |
Helena Chavarria
: One team and three teams; one teamleader and three teamleaders.
1 day 3 hrs
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Thank you, Helena ...
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| agree |
Tushar Deep
1 day 6 hrs
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Thank you, Tushar ...
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Discussion
In BE, this depends on whether you see the group as a collection of individuals or as a single unit. In AE, singular is preferred, but plural pronouns can be used (Although I prefer keeping things either singular or plural; "they" in place of "he or she" can already be confusing enough).
then there's no ambiguity
Thanks for your help.
The plural of "crew" is "crews". One boat has one crew, two boats have two crews. So your first suggestion is correct, though the second is not particularly wrong, since "crew" can mean both the group and its individual members.