# expertise [singular /plural?]



## Vickyhere

Is "expertise" either a singular or plural noun? Or the plural is "expertises"?

I tried to see the answer on the dictionary (on line and in the book) but I cannot find the right answer.

Thank you in advanced.


----------



## nzfauna

Expertises is not a word, no 

Some examples:

She has a lot of expertise.
She has expertise in editing.
She has expertise in editing and proofreading
She has expertise in both editing and proofreading.
Sally and Simon both have expertise in editing.
Sally has vast expertise in editing.
Sally and simon have vast expertise in editing.
Expertise in editing is necessary for this position.
This position requires editing expertise.
Sarah gained expertise in editing.
Sarah showed off her expertise in editing.


----------



## Rover_KE

It's singular.

I've never seen 'expertises', but might well say 'My employees have different kinds of expertise'.

Rover


----------



## Vickyhere

Thank you for answering...

In this case can I not say "...many experitses..." but I have to say "...many expertise..."?


----------



## Istarion

It would be "much expertise" - or more naturally "a lot of expertise". Many is only used with actual plurals.

Hope that explains your question.


----------



## Vickyhere

PERFECT!

So, "Expertise" is uncountable so I have to use "much", "a lot of", "a plenty of", etc.

Now, I can understand ROVER who said "different kinds of expertice".

VERY CLEAR!

Many thanks to everyone (where thank is countable 

Bye


----------



## Thomas Tompion

Vickyhere said:


> Is "expertise" either a singular or plural noun? Or the plural is "expertises"?
> 
> I tried to see the answer on the dictionary (on line and in the book) but I cannot find the right answer.
> 
> Thank you in advanced.


Despite the chorus of disapproval and the fact that my UK English spellcheck always seems to object to plurals of abstract nouns, I don't think expertises is out of the question at all.

He had many expertises - it's horrid English, but people do write it.
List your expertises - make a list of the fields in which you are expert; again horrid but used by some people.

If you doubt me, notice that UK Yahoo gives 74,000 instances of the use of the word expertises; a lot of them are French, surprisingly, and not many are elegant, but someone needs to point out that they are there.

P.S. Vicky, you ask *Is "expertise" either a singular or plural noun?*  I think you meant to ask *Is "expertise" a singular or a plural noun?,* i.e. into which of the categories does it fall. Your question isn't asking this.  If you were to say *Is "expertise" either a singular or a plural noun*? you'd be asking if it is either one or the other, not which of the two it is.


----------



## Loob

Mais non, TT - expertise in English is surely uncountable...


----------



## Vickyhere

Thomas, you are right! It was exactly my doubt. I have seen "expertise" many times used in the plural form and I have used it many times. Although my spellcheck did not accept it (to be honest the Microsoft Word spellchecker accepts it).

The important thing is that it is not correct in English.

Thank you very much.

Bye


----------



## Thomas Tompion

Loob said:


> Mais non, TT - expertise in English is surely uncountable...


Now Loob, you know better than just to disagree flatly, without giving reasons.  I've a boring 74,000 more or less illiterate votes for its countability; 30,000 may be in French - where it is countable, but that leaves 44,000 people who regard an expertise as a field of excellence of some sort, and I think that, like sugar, it's normally uncountable, but is sometimes used in an countable way.  I don't like it much but I'm not a Lord Chamberlain of the language.


----------



## Loob

You're right, TT, I should know better.

I shall go away and thrash myself mercilessly.

But I think - as so often - you and I violently agree: "expertise" in English is best used as an uncountable noun


----------



## Thomas Tompion

Loob said:


> You're right, TT, I should know better.
> 
> I shall go away and thrash myself mercilessly.
> 
> But I think - as so often - you and I violently agree: "expertise" in English is best used as an uncountable noun


Aha, so we're discussing not its use, but its best use. I've already said I wouldn't use it readily in a countable way, but

1.  He was a man to whom many expertises came easily.
2. The periodic table of expertises.
3. Penguin Europe and our suppliers, Ebeco AB of Sweden, have decided to combine our expertises and create a joint venture company called Ebeco Underfloor Heating UK Ltd
4. Specialising in Optical Fibre assemblies and interconnect for the Optoelectronic industry but with expertises applicable to the Electronics and Electro-Chemical Industries.
_5. We specialise in live sound engineering for small to medium sized events, with additional expertises in studio recording, location recording and sound to video (Allied Media). _


It's quite a buzz-word in modern industry. We all need to keep up with the times.


----------



## Vickyhere

WOW... I have learnt as many new words now by reading you two than as many words I could learn in an English lesson...

Thank you!


----------



## frostypotter

What about use with a verb or participle? For example, "His expertise {was|were} unmatched by his peers."

I'm guessing it is plural, but I'm not sure. This falls under the same category as "data" and the like.


----------



## entangledbank

Hi, frostypotter, welcome to the forum. In my work I've noticed the word is sometimes used with a plural verb. At first I regarded this as just a careless mistake, and corrected it. After a while I thought it was happening too often to be just careless, so I checked Google. Yes, quite a few people use 'were'. It's probably more common when the verb is separated from the noun, e.g.

Their expertise in consumer asset finance were much in evidence . . .

To me, this is still not common enough to be considered a 'standard' variant. That is, it's not like 'data'. I still change the plural verb to singular when I find it.


----------



## Winston C

"Expertise" is a singular noun. If there are several people, each of whom has different expertise, you can say "These people have different areas of expertise." If one individual has expertise in many disciplines, you can say "She has many areas of expertise."


----------



## panjandrum

This is the first time I have seen expertises, or expertise treated as plural (Their expertise ... were ...).
It looks alien to me - despite its apparent popularity.

Looking around, where it is used as a countable noun it seems, to me at least, to have a much more limited definition than I am used to.  For example, one company chooses to list its expertises.  For me, those capabilities and experience all together make up its expertise.


----------



## liliput

It's an uncountable noun.

I've never seen "expertises" before. I find it ugly in the extreme and completely unnecessary. I contend that TT has found 74,000 examples of poor use of English.

The examples in post 12 look completely erroneous to me: I would use the word "skills" in 1 and 2; "expertise" in 3 and either "skills" or "expertise" in 4 and 5.

A person has an amount or level of expertise, not a number of expertises.

A search for "knowledges" on Google gives even more hits, but I've never heard anyone described as having "many knowledges".

I reiterate that "expertise" is an uncountable noun. "Expertises" is horrible, horrible, horrible; please don't use it.


----------



## FannyB

Winston C said:


> "Expertise" is a singular noun. If there are several people, each of whom has different expertise, you can say "These people have different areas of expertise." If one individual has expertise in many disciplines, you can say "She has many areas of expertise."


 I'd say areas of expertise as well. 
re: google results and use of the word in French, you have to consider that the French word also means an art appraisal and a expert's report.
expertise is a bit like flair, maybe it's allowed in the plural form but is it that useful? (plus it sounds awful )


----------



## Ann O'Rack

Thomas Tompion said:


> Now Loob, you know better than just to disagree flatly, without giving reasons. I've a boring 74,000 more or less illiterate votes for its countability; 30,000 may be in French - where it is countable, but that leaves 44,000 people who regard an expertise as a field of excellence of some sort, and I think that, like sugar, it's normally uncountable, but is sometimes used in an countable way. I don't like it much but I'm not a Lord Chamberlain of the language.


 
Thomas, your response is a perfect example of "50 million monkeys can't be wrong."

Just because people use "expertises" in the plural doesn't mean they're using it _correctly_. I was under the impression that this forum is intended to encourage _correct_ usage, or at the very least _explain_ incorrect usage.

There are many words in English that are only used in the singular, "expertise" is one of them. "Sugar", your other example, isn't the same as there are lots of instances where it might be used in the plural ("I'll have two sugars in my tea", "fructose and lactose are both sugars"), but that's simply not the case with "expertise".


----------



## entangledbank

Ann O'Rack said:


> Just because people use "expertises" in the plural doesn't mean they're using it _correctly_.


 
But what does make something correct, if not that? What else could there possibly be? Usage is the only criterion we have.



Ann O'Rack said:


> There are many words in English that are only used in the singular, "expertise" is one of them.


 
This is blatantly untrue, as a quick Google search proves. It _is _used in the plural. Things have advanced since the previous search - I now get 1.9 million. Most of these seemed to be ruled out as by non-natives. The 1.9 million doesn't look like a very reliable number, so I don't for one moment want to claim even a tenth of that as legitimate uses.

Let's try to get to good native-speaker uses by restricting the websites:

.gov - expertises 900, expertise 6.8 million
.gov.uk - expertises 300, expertise 440 000

(Government sites aren't just boringly formal, conservative language: there's a lot of different writers on them, so these are adequately representative figures for the standard language.)

From these figures, we see that plural 'expertises' is _overwhelmingly_ non-standard, and a foreign learner definitely should _not_ use it. These are the facts. Claiming that it can't be plural in English because it can't be plural for you is not a fact about English. Usage is all there is.


----------



## panjandrum

Figures from the BNC and COCA*
BNC
expertise - 2609
expertises - 3
COCA
expertise - 6998
expertises - 3


BNC - British National Corpus
COCA - Corpus of Contemporary American English


----------



## Ann O'Rack

And your conclusion from those figures, Panj?


----------



## Thomas Tompion

Ann O'Rack said:


> Thomas, your response is a perfect example of "50 million monkeys can't be wrong."
> 
> Just because people use "expertises" in the plural doesn't mean they're using it _correctly_. I was under the impression that this forum is intended to encourage _correct_ usage, or at the very least _explain_ incorrect usage.
> 
> There are many words in English that are only used in the singular, "expertise" is one of them. "Sugar", your other example, isn't the same as there are lots of instances where it might be used in the plural ("I'll have two sugars in my tea", "fructose and lactose are both sugars"), but that's simply not the case with "expertise".


Hello Ann,

My response was a parody of that argument. The trouble is that when many people start using a noun in this way, there's a danger of it becoming 'correct', and, as I wisely pointed out, we are not Lords Chamberlain of the language, nor is language a static entity.

I don't like it much, and will probably be dead before my treatment of the word starts to look like self-conscious indulgence in archaism, but I don't feel strongly about this the way I do about some of the more famous _causes celebres_ of grammatical chivalry. I even wonder, once in a while, if there isn't a difference between someone with a little expertise and a few areas of expertise.


----------



## Ann O'Rack

Ah, but does "a few" refer to a big number or a small number? Another question we could debate, but not on this thread.


----------



## panjandrum

Ann O'Rack said:


> And your conclusion from those figures, Panj?


I will continue to consider _expertise _uncountable and advise anyone who asks to do the same.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

My point was that the word 'expertises' is useful in that it is a short and, some would say, neat, way of saying 'areas of expertise'.  I expect it's this last's wordiness which will cause it to be replaced over time.


----------



## sj_robertson

Ann O'Rack said:


> Just because people use "expertises" in the plural doesn't mean they're using it _correctly_. I was under the impression that this forum is intended to encourage _correct_ usage, or at the very least _explain_ incorrect usage.



Very true! I'm often discussing this fact with fellow translators. People seem to think that if you type a word into Google and it returns a couple of results, that it is valid word. You have to look at the context in which it appears. Don't, for example, take terms and expressions in English from foreign government publications (e.g. czech, russia, japan, germany, sweden are just a few of the ones I have seen) as being the current and correct term. Try restricting your searches. A simple "site:uk" in the google search box is often sufficient to get a clear picture of whether a term is generally accepted, as this will only return sites with a .co.uk, .gov.uk etc. URL. Generally I find that international companies, who often use bad translations and bad english, will have a .com address, so the site:uk search will mostly restrict you to English sites produced by native British English speakers.



Ann O'Rack said:


> There are many words in English that are only used in the singular, "expertise" is one of them. "Sugar", your other example, isn't the same as there are lots of instances where it might be used in the plural ("I'll have two sugars in my tea", "fructose and lactose are both sugars"), but that's simply not the case with "expertise".



Technically speaking, your argument is incorrect, although I agree it can be used in the way you describe. The added -s in these examples does not belong to the sugar, however, but rather to an absent quantifier, e.g. two lumpS of sugar, two spoonS of sugar, or "fructose and lactose are both typeS of sugar"



entangledbank said:


> But what does make something correct, if not that? What else could there possibly be? Usage is the only criterion we have.





Thomas Tompion said:


> The trouble is that when many people start using a noun in this way, there's a danger of it becoming 'correct', and, as I wisely pointed out, we are not Lords Chamberlain of the language, nor is language a static entity."
> 
> My point was that the word 'expertises' is useful in that it is a short and, some would say, neat, way of saying 'areas of expertise'. I expect it's this last's wordiness which will cause it to be replaced over time.



I don't think it is at all right to say that "correctness" should be based on usage! In all my years, I have yet to come across "expertises". Personally, I find it ugly, on the eyes, the ears AND the tongue! Whether used or not - incorrectly, in any case - it should not be encouraged by listing examples of where it HAS been used (incorrectly!).

If I were to tell you that, (true fact!) in my region of England, I often hear "drowneding" used as the present participle of the verb "to drown" and "drowneded" as the past tense, would you then go searching on the internet and tell everyone that the verb is now "to drowned" due to changes in usage trends??!!


----------



## Thomas Tompion

sj_robertson said:


> Very true! [...]
> 
> If I were to tell you that, (true fact!) in my region of England, I often hear "drowneding" used as the present participle of the verb "to drown" and "drowneded" as the past tense, would you then go searching on the internet and tell everyone that the verb is now "to drowned" due to changes in usage trends??!!


You become very downright, about this, Mr Robertson, yet make surprising errors (e.g. _Very true_, a famous pleonasm), and doubling up the use of question marks and exclamation marks, as though doing so adds to an interrogative or exclamatory effect . 

The issue is a serious one for us. If usage is not to be our guide, then what is? We take refuge behind ideas like specifying that the usage must be educated, and maybe have a certain historical justification; the alternative is to say that language is a static unchanging entity.  And what created that entity?  Usage.

I don't like _expertises_ any more than you do, I expect, and probably for similar reasons, but when a word has a good practical justification, it's hard to stop it becoming accepted.


----------



## sj_robertson

Thomas Tompion said:


> You become very downright, about this, Mr Robertson



Sorry it's in my nature to be forthright!



Thomas Tompion said:


> yet make surprising errors (e.g. _Very true_, a famous pleonasm), and doubling up the use of question marks and exclamation marks, as though doing so adds to an interrogative or exclamatory effect .



True, I made these errors.  However, this is a _discussion_ forum and nobody can avoid ALL pleonasms without being able to plan every sentence (many of them come naturally and discourse would sound rather stilted if they were fully absent). My use of "very true" here, I would say, was actually purposeful! The "very" simply emphasised my agreement with her.

Re. "??!!", this is quite common in informal discussion. I would not use, nor would I ever recommend usage in formal, literary or scholarly texts. However, the discussion was about the word "expertises" and I was engaging in informal discussion on that subject, not the issue of punctuation! 



Thomas Tompion said:


> The issue is a serious one for us. If usage is not to be our guide, then what is? We take refuge behind ideas like specifying that the usage must be educated, and maybe have a certain historical justification; the alternative is to say that language is a static unchanging entity.  And what created that entity?  Usage.
> 
> I don't like _expertises_ any more than you do, I expect, and probably for similar reasons, but when a word has a good practical justification, it's hard to stop it becoming accepted.



This gets down to the "nitty gritty"! I do not deny that usage does add to language - after all, many of our words came initially from French and many others have been assimilated into our language through usage e.g. hoover and sellotape, to name just two! 

My argument is that incorrect usage should not be condoned _just_ because it is used somewhere by someone. I dread the day when I might have to write "drowneded" not in jest! 

I would say that in this case, the pluralisation _*has no*_ practical justification! Where is the justification, when the _correct_ word, i.e. expertise, serves the purpose? After all, is a person's expertise not the collective whole of that person's knowledge and skills, specialisms, etc.?

e.g.
He has expertise in interior and graphic design.
He also has expertise in financial management.
-> He has expertise in financial management and interior and graphic design.
-> He has a range of (different) expertise

Of course, there are many correct plural alternatives that can be used - skills, competences and so on - so personally, I do not see the necessity of using "expertise" incorrectly.

P.S. I didn't mean to cause any offence if I did!


----------



## panjandrum

I remind all of you, newcomers and old hands, that the topic of the thread is expertise, not the philosophy of correctness in language.
Posts that do not directly address the thread topic may be removed, no matter how interesting.

PS to *sj robertson*: welcome to WordReference


----------



## SMF

"In addition to his analytical and technical expertise, he is also a very good human being."

Is this sentence grammatically correct? I have a doubt because after "analytical and technical", we should use a plural form. 

I am confused because it is not the same structure as given by sj_robertson in post# 30 (i.e. He has expertise in interior and graphic design).

Thanks for your help.


----------



## sj_robertson

SMF said:


> "In addition to his analytical and technical expertise, he is also a very good human being."
> 
> Is this sentence grammatically correct? I have a doubt because after "analytical and technical", we should use a plural form.
> Thanks for your help.



I would not agree. "Analytical and technical" is used to describe the type of expertise and so it should remain singular.

Search on Google for - "mass noun" site:economicexpert.com - It provides quite a simple explanation of how to use mass nouns.


----------



## SMF

sj_robertson said:


> I would not agree. "Analytical and technical" is used to describe the type of expertise and so it should remain singular.
> 
> Search on Google for - "mass noun" site:economicexpert.com - It provides quite a simple explanation of how to use mass nouns.



Thanks sj_robertson for your response.

Is "skill" also a mass noun?

Here are my search results on google:

"analytical and technical skill" site:.uk    ,  5 results
"analytical and technical skills" site:.uk   ,  17,700 results

These results show that skill should be used in plural form with "Analytical and technical".

I am not sure about "expertise".


----------



## Thomas Tompion

_Skills_ should be plural and _expertise_ singular in your sentence, in my view, SMF.


----------



## SMF

Thomas Tompion said:


> _Skills_ should be plural and _expertise_ singular in your sentence, in my view, SMF.



Thanks TT for your help.


----------



## wuvuddicu

Dear all,

 this thread state that expertise is uncountable and its use in the  plural form must be avoided (expertises).
I am now wondering about the right verbal conjugation when expertise is the main subject of a phrase. I try to condense all my doubts in the following sentence:

My expertise* includes* a solid theoretical background and strong experimental skills.

Does my expertise include or includes? Should expertise be conjugated with the third singular person or not? Note that I hold two different expertise.

Thank you


----------



## panjandrum

I would like to answer the question in two ways.

First, you should say "My expertise includes..." - a singular verb - followed by any number of elements of your expertise.

Second, I'm not sure that you should consider your "solid theoretical background" as expertise.  I think of "expertise" as consisting of all the things that you can do expertly.

Let's look at some definitions of expertise.
WordReference: _
skillfulness by virtue of possessing special knowledge
_Merriam-Webster: _*1* *:* expert opinion or  commentary
*2* *:* the skill of an expert_
dictionary.com
_expert  skill  or  knowledge;  expertness;  know-how:  __business  __expertise.

_Hmmm.  Perhaps it does include background knowledge


----------



## wuvuddicu

Thanks Panjandrum, for both answers!
From the definitions of "expertise" you reported it seems appropriate to refer to knowledge background as an expertise. Anyway I thank you, you made a good point.


----------



## bashar711

In most of the examples above, we are talking about one person's expertise, but what about this sentence: "Inviting parents into the classroom to share their experiences & expertises can add to my curriculum while strengthening bonds between the school, students, and families." Yes, "areas of expertise" would fit perfectly (and "sounds" much better). However, "expertise" alone would not work.


----------



## Le Penseur

This is a fairly old thread, but just to some recent comments - usage is the key in any language. 

English, as with every other language, is evolving. Latin evolved, Ancient Greek evolved, French evolved and so is English. You only need to look at texts from each century to see noticeable differences. 

How does a language change? Why, simply by use.


----------



## Loob

bashar711 said:


> In most of the examples above, we are talking about one person's expertise, but what about this sentence: "Inviting parents into the classroom to share their experiences & expertises can add to my curriculum while strengthening bonds between the school, students, and families." Yes, "areas of expertise" would fit perfectly (and "sounds" much better). However, "expertise" alone would not work.


Hello bashar - welcome to the forums!

I never use "expertise" in the plural, and would happily say or write your sentence with the singular: _Inviting parents into the classroom to share their experiences and *expertise* can add to ..._


----------



## jponch

Ann O'Rack said:


> Thomas, your response is a perfect example of "50 million monkeys can't be wrong."
> 
> Just because people use "expertises" in the plural doesn't mean they're using it _correctly_. I was under the impression that this forum is intended to encourage _correct_ usage, or at the very least _explain_ incorrect usage.
> 
> There are many words in English that are only used in the singular, "expertise" is one of them. "Sugar", your other example, isn't the same as there are lots of instances where it might be used in the plural ("I'll have two sugars in my tea", "fructose and lactose are both sugars"), but that's simply not the case with "expertise".



I beg to differ. I'm creating a website where we are displaying a list of an entire company, but also providing the option to filter by area of expertise. The filter is accessed by a simple drop select, which means it needs very concise wording. It list a number of DIFFERENT expertise (e.g. Administration, Sales, Development, Design, etc.), and the default view shows "All Expertise" (or is it "All Expertises"?). I still think it's just "All Exerptise", but you see that it's used in a decidedly plural way


----------



## laworr

The concept of being an 'expert' means being an expert in a particular (typically focused if not narrow) field.  

So naturally 'expertise' is rooted in the singular, and the term 'expertises' jars.   So it seems more proper to refer to 'expertise in many/various fields'.

But what jars one generation of ears/eyes will fade if the plural form catches on.


----------



## KHS

In the Corpus of Contemporary American English (450 million words), there are exactly 3 uses of 'expertises':
(1) everyone in our office kind of has different *expertises* in  different areas
(2) Complementary *expertises* at different levels and at different  agencies
(3) by taking what ARS already had and what we already had and both our  *expertises*, the gene sequencing project was completed ahead

At that rate of use, it would seem better to avoid the plural, especially if you are a non-native speaker of English, as you will almost surely be thought incorrect by most native speakers...


----------

