What is strange about 0.1 cats?
Say I have 20 friends, and two of them have cats. Then, on average, my friends have 0.1 cats.
That’s maybe a weird way to put it when I could just say Two of my friends have cats. But that’s not the strange thing I have in mind.
What’s strange about 0.1 cats is the fact that you can use plural marking -s in cats. When we talk about decimals, including 0.1, we use the plural noun following the decimal: 0.1 cats, not 0.1 cat. Now, why is that strange?
Well, ignore for a moment the strangeness of the decimally dismantled cat and think about your conceptualization of plural nouns. When do you think you use the plural marker -s (cat vs. cats)? Most people will tell you that the answer is as straight-forward as 1+1 = 1: we use plural -s when we talk about more than 1 cat.
But now what happens to the decimally dismantled cat? 0.1 cats! That’s not more than 1 cat! Yet we use the plural.
Even for my other 18 friends who don’t have cats. I could say that they have zero cats. Zero is definitely not more than 1.
But if it does not mean more than 1, then what does plural -s mean?
Maybe that’s the wrong question to start with? Maybe we should start by asking: What does the absence of plural marking mean? What does it mean to say 1 cat?
It seems to mean “exactly 1 cat.” And if so, then plural -s just means “anything that is not exactly 1."
Zero is not exactly 1, and so it is marked with “plural” -s.
0.1 is not exactly 1, and so it is marked with “plural” -s.
Anything that is not exactly 1 is marked with “plural” -s.
So “plural” -s does not mean plural at all! Rather, it means the absence of the singular!
So what?
You may have just added a quirky fact to your arsenal of conversational party tricks. But there is more to this one. It reveals the beauty of your unconscious grammar. It works without your being aware of it. It even has the capacity to override whatever grammatical rule you may have put into your conscious awareness. (Even if you think that plural means more than 1 you will still use the plural marker for 0 cats.)
As a theoretical linguist, I study this unconscious grammar for a living. And even after more than 30 years of doing so, it continues to fascinate me. Maybe the strangeness of 0.1 cats gives you a glimpse into why.
