Editing English plurals (section)

=== Nouns used attributively ===
Nouns used attributively to qualify other nouns are generally in the singular, even though for example, a ''dog catcher'' catches more than one dog, and a ''department store'' has more than one department. This is true even for some [[binary noun]]s where the singular form is not found in isolation, such as a ''trouser mangle'' or the ''scissor kick''. This is also true where the attribute noun is itself qualified with a number, such as a ''twenty-dollar bill'', a ''ten-foot pole'' or a ''two-man tent''. The plural is used for {{Lang|la|[[pluralia tantum]]}} nouns: a ''glasses case'' is for eyeglasses, while a ''glass case'' is made of glass (but compare ''eyeglass case''); also an ''arms race'' versus ''arm wrestling''. The plural may be used to emphasise the plurality of the attribute, especially in [[British English]] but very rarely in [[American English]]: a ''careers advisor'', a ''languages expert''. The plural is also more common with irregular plurals for various attributions: ''women killers'' are women who kill, whereas ''woman killers'' are those who kill women.

The singular and plural forms of loanwords from other languages where countable nouns used attributively are, unlike English, plural and come at the end of the word are sometimes modified when entering English usage. For example, in Spanish, nouns composed of a verb and its plural object usually have the verb first and noun object last (e.g. the legendary monster ''[[chupacabra]]s'', literally "sucks-goats", or in a more natural English formation "goatsucker") and the plural form of the object noun is retained in both the singular and plural forms of the compound (i.e. singular ''el chupacabras'', plural ''los chupacabras''). However, when entering English, the final s of ''chupacabras'' was treated as a plural of the compound (i.e. the monster) rather than of the object of the verb (i.e. the goats), and so "chupacabra" without an s is the singular in English, even though in Spanish ''chupacabra'' could literally be construed as a creature that sucks only one single goat.