{"id":376,"date":"2008-10-04T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2008-10-04T18:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/2-complete-pair-for-99\/"},"modified":"2008-10-04T12:34:19","modified_gmt":"2008-10-04T18:34:19","slug":"2-complete-pair-for-99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/10\/2-complete-pair-for-99\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;2 Complete Pair for $99&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I saw this in a television advertisement two days ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Problem:<\/strong><br \/>\n&#8220;Pair&#8221; is a singular noun being used incorrectly as a plural noun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Explanation:<\/strong><br \/>\nThe TV ad was from <a target=\"_new\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eyemasters.com\/\">EyeMasters<\/a>, which was promoting the fact that a customer could buy two complete sets of eyeglasses for $99.<\/p>\n<p>A set of eyeglasses &#8212; one for each eye &#8212; is called a <em>pair<\/em> of eyeglasses.<\/p>\n<p>Multiple sets of glasses is the same as multiple <em>pairs<\/em> of eyeglasses.<\/p>\n<p>I believe that the misuse of &#8220;pair&#8221; as a substitute for &#8220;pairs&#8221; is consistent with my &#8220;Devolution toward Simpler&#8221; linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to say &#8220;pair&#8221; than to say &#8220;pairs&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>For fun, I searched Google for each of the following phrases (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;two pairs&#8221; &#8212; 3,230,000 matches<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;two pair&#8221; &#8212; 1,080,000 matches<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This tells me that Web authors favor &#8220;two pairs&#8221; over &#8220;two pair&#8221; by a pitiful ratio of 2.99:1.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution:<\/strong><br \/>\n&#8220;2 Complete Pairs for $99&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw this in a television advertisement two days ago. Problem: &#8220;Pair&#8221; is a singular noun being used incorrectly as a plural noun. Explanation: The TV ad was from EyeMasters, which was promoting the fact that a customer could buy two complete sets of eyeglasses for $99. A set of eyeglasses &#8212; one for each&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,19,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-common-english-blunders","category-devolution-toward-simpler","category-number"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&quot;2 Complete Pair for $99&quot; - Kirk Mahoney . com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/10\/2-complete-pair-for-99\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;2 Complete Pair for $99&quot; - Kirk Mahoney . com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I saw this in a television advertisement two days ago. 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