21st century Wordwatch – Concerns and other new plurals

In the last twenty or thirty years we have seen a modification of the standard usage of “concern”, as in “concern was expressed for the child’s safety”.  Now, it is “concerns were expressed…” and “We have concerns about the application of the new regulations”. What advantage does the new formulation confer over the traditional singular?

“… the Vice-Chancellor wrote … to express his concerns that the work was going on far too slowly…” Lucilla Burn, The Fitzwilliam Museum: A History, 2016. Here is evidence that “concerns” has actually replaced “concern” as standard usage in such a context. More examples from recent years:

“You are also not alone in your concerns at the way companies get a share of any 0870 revenue.” – article on phone prices, D. Telegraph, 11 April 2005. The writer has contrived a gratuitously ugly and syntactically messy sentence, illustrating the insidious consequences of misusing the word. Once its true value in a sentence has been blurred, it can find itself in any number of anomalous contexts. And here is a sentence that unwittingly betrays (in its singular verb) the real, singular nature of the word: “To this has been added concerns over mismanagement and fraud.” (David Heathcote-Amory, The European Constitution and What It Means for Britain, 2003).

“Many concerns were expressed by examiners about elementary errors” (D. Telegraph 17 September 2005, quoting an Edexcel report on exam results) – here is the transformation of the word into its new identity is endorsed by Edexcel, which is presumably an authority on the correct use of English.

On the other hand, “concerns” can still be used as a synonym for “affairs” or “preoccupations” in the business sense:  the context makes clear that the plural is really required.

Unwarranted plurals are now springing up all over the place. Another is “actions” – as in “the police praised his actions in saving the baby.” Here, again, conventional use of the singular (“police praised his action …”) has been pointlessly altered into a plural.  Another victim is “attention”, which now has to be “attentions”: “An anthropologist who tires of studying tribal differences in Africa would do well to turn his attentions to what used to be called Fleet Street …” – Stephen Glover, The Oldie, August 2017.

And here’s an alarming example: “the embrace of cabala symbols has raised alarms among some Jewish scholars.” New York Times, 8 July 2004.  The singular “alarm”, as in a phrase like “caused alarm”, is what is meant here.

Yet another: “… murmuring approvals at her daughter’s many talents” (D. Telegraph, 15 August 2005).  Here is a plural that never, to my knowledge, existed before.

What about: “The couple were questioned over suspicions of administering a noxious substance …” (D. Telegraph, 16 March 2007). Although the syntax has been made to accommodate the plural “suspicions”, it is an odd alteration of the usual phrase “on suspicion” and illustrates, yet again, the strange tendency for these abstract nouns to become plural.

A particularly striking case is “behaviours”, a specialist term in social psychology (I think), which is steadily gaining adherents as an apparently more “scientific” term than “behaviour”, but is rarely, if ever, needed. This year I notice that “behaviours” has become standard usage. It sounds so much more learned and sophisticated. But in my book it’s simply wrong, because it’s more complicated than it need be (implying socio-psychological connotations that aren’t actually there), and a perfectly good word already exists do the job. Sheer pretentiousness is a potent influence on our use of words, more’s the pity.