attributive freshman

Amy West medievalist at W-STS.COM
Thu Nov 2 17:40:11 UTC 2006


I'm curious as to others' responses about this use:

When I see "freshman" used attributively, I have the instinct to
decline it to agree with its noun in number. Does anyone else?

For example: when I see "freshman girls" I want to change it to
"freshmen girls." My second language is German, so I'm wondering if
this instinct is grounded in the native English syntax or is some
interference from a foreign language where we make adjectives agree
in number and case.

---Amy West

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