#33112
06/21/2001 7:59 PM
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From a recent New Yorker article:
"...says that he is being asked to come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover unrecorded accounts payables and inflated accounts receivables."
It seems to me someone has gone overboard with the pluralization here, but perhaps my ignorance of accounting is causing me to miss some nuance here that would make this sound less weird. As it is, in my ignorant state, this sounds like "brother-in-laws" or, even worse, "brothers-in-laws" (or, worse still, "mothers-in-laws"). Seems that accounts payable would suit, as it's a plural - or do we now need the case, number and gender of the adjective to match that of the noun in English?
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#33113
06/21/2001 8:14 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Accounts payable and accounts receivable are standard business terms. They are group singulars (if that approximates the proper grammatic term) and would not be taken to refer to any specific collection of accounts. A single account payable is not anything I have ever heard but then I'm not an accountant so I wouldn't really know. However, if you had some specific collection of individual members of the category accounts payable it would seem to me only logical that you would take the term accounts payable and tack an s on the end of it giving you accounts payables.
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#33114
06/21/2001 9:23 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Oooooh, Faldage - now you've gone and made me mad!  I tend to the peevish, but I managed to restrain myself in the possessives thread (just how admirable that was, you can't know...) ~ now I must speak! Accounts payable/receivable are standard business terms, as too they are collective nouns (I think that's actually the grammatical term). But (and here's where I go poking my big but in), to reference a specific collection of accounts payable isn't as simple as just "Oh! Let's add a superfluous S!" Here's the trick - another modifier, a la "the accounts payable from class number 2773-30". I'm with Hyla 100% on this one - it's on the same order of grating as "brother-in-laws".   AnnaS? May I? Harrumph. Shame on The New Yorker.
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#33115
06/21/2001 9:32 PM
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A few things: A collective noun is a noun that appears to be singular, but can take the plural, no? Like, "the team is all here" could also be expressed "the team are all here." So, FiberB, I appreciate the concurrence, but I have to hand some of it back to you (in an entirely non-peevish way, I assure you). It seems to me that one account, which is to be paid, is an account payable, and more than one of these would be accounts payable, and that the department that handles these would be the Accounts Payable Office or something. I understand that usage seems to have gotten us to the point where one of them is an accounts payable (that indefinite article can't be right...), but how and why? Looking back at the replies so far, it seems that the idea of the double plural is to describe multiple sets of accounts payable - but why wouldn't this also be accounts payable? On a funny note, related to accounts payable and language: http://www.theonion.com/archive/archive_kornfeld.html
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#33116
06/21/2001 9:41 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Now why in the world can't they just say payable accounts?
This is different than saying "Make checks payable to so-and-so", right?
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#33117
06/21/2001 10:08 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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"Accounts payables"?!?! Jesh.
But don't take my word for it. I've asked my CPA husband to comment:
I've been invited to appear as a guest poster. As a CPA with 23 years of business experience, I can state I have never heard the double plural Accounts Payables. The department that pays bills is Accounts Payable. A single account can be referred to as an account payable, although in the context of a business discussion, payable is usually unnecessary. You're already talking to somebody about payables or receivables or you're talking about vendors or customers. We would refer to the accounts or the vendors (if accounts payable) or customers (if accounts receivable). Also, a group of accounts extracted from a subledger would still be referred to as accounts payable or receivable.
Perhaps the writer wrote "account payables" and the editor meant to change it to "accounts payable," and the edit got away from him. Or, maybe it was an homage to Gollum.
Nassssty billessssesssss.
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#33118
06/21/2001 10:10 PM
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Posts: 771
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Point taken on collective nouns, Hyla - I'm certainly confusing something, but my heart is in the right place... Somewhere in the back of my head, my 8th grade English teacher is repeating the word "gasoline" over and over. That may be a better example of a collective noun, now that I think of it...
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#33119
06/21/2001 10:20 PM
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I'd always assumed a collective noun was the term used to replace 'group' when referring to a group of something. eg
A murder of crows
A pride of lions
etc
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#33120
06/21/2001 10:41 PM
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Sparteye - thanks to you and your husband ever so for your contribution to this - it helped ease my mind greatly. I hope your husband checks out the link I posted, as it's a series of editorials written from the perspective of a gangsta homey who calls himself Tha Stone Cold Funky-Fresh Bad-Ass Of Accountz Reeceevable.
I'd agree that perhaps the editor made a mistake, but it appeared on both words, and it's the New Yorker - is nothing reliable any more?
A murder of crows
A pride of lions
These, at least when applied to animals (strickly speakin', the quarry of a hunter) are called terms of venery. I don't know whether there's a broader term to describe groupings of non-animals, such as a brace of pistols, or a rack of brewskis - will have to consult An Exaltation of Larks.
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#33121
06/22/2001 12:08 AM
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Sparteye, I bow to yur husband's expertise, but here's my son's unique take on the question: Accounts Payables and Receivables are for those companies that, for whatever reason  , maintain more than one set of books.
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