4.4. Plural assertions

| Chapter 4: Kinds |

| 4.4. Plural assertions

As the following examples show, sentences can make several assertions at once by using the plural. Suppose we have defined a kind called "high-up fixture", for instance like so:

> A high-up fixture is a kind of thing. A high-up fixture is usually fixed in place.

Then the following sentence creates two such objects and puts them in their place:

> The high shelf and the skylight window are high-up fixtures in the Lumber Room.

since it is equivalent to saying:

> The high shelf is a high-up fixture. The skylight window is a high-up fixture. The high shelf is in the Lumber Room. The skylight window is in the Lumber Room.

Such plurals are allowed in almost any context, and we could even define two kinds at once:

> Bucket and basket are kinds of container.

Inform constructs plurals by a form of Conway's pluralisation algorithm, which is quite good - for example, it gets oxen, geese (but mongooses), sheep, wildebeest, bream, vertebrae, quartos, wharves, phenomena, jackanapes and smallpox correct. But English is a very irregular language, and multiple-word nouns sometimes pluralise in unexpected ways. So we sometimes need to intervene:

> A brother in law is a kind of man. The plural of brother in law is brothers in law.

We are allowed to define more than one plural for the same singular text, and for the names of things, rooms or kinds, all alternative versions will be used interchangeably. (For instance, Inform defines both "people" and "persons" as plurals of "person".)

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| Example Get Me to the Church on Time Using kinds of clothing to prevent the player from wearing several pairs of trousers at the same time. |
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