Pedant: Blah Details or Blah Detail?

It's a culture thingy. I was naming an object and wanted to be impeccably correct at every minute _detail_ I was writing into.

One of my classes, I intend to name as CommitmentDetail, where Commitment is a financial budgeting term that means the amount set aside or commited for a particular expense activitiy.

If it sounds jarring to your ear because the word "detail" is in itself a collective noun, then I must tell you that Indians tend to write "Commitment Details" where I guess the Westerners would be inclined to write "Commitment Detail".

What's the correct one? More importantly, which one is wrong?

Sathyaish Chakravarthy
Thursday, August 5, 2004

In UK English detail takes an 's' for the plural: a single detail, many details. 

a cynic writes...
Thursday, August 5, 2004

Its one of the results of using a verb as a noun.

To detail something, take details.

Its both a plural and singular noun, like sheep but as detail also has a simple plural that gets used as well.

So you're neither right nor wrong.

Personally when naming tables that have collections I pluralise the name, Orders, OrderDetails and so on.

Simon Lucy
Thursday, August 5, 2004

Thanks, folks.

Sathyaish Chakravarthy
Thursday, August 5, 2004

>>What's the correct one? More importantly, which one is wrong?

For some reason I found this sentence quite funny :) Two sides of the same coin, no?

StrangeHumor
Thursday, August 5, 2004

Yup! I am kinda, at client site. Limited time, limited attention to anything else outside the domain...

Sathyaish Chakravarthy
Thursday, August 5, 2004

Detail isn't so much a simultaneously singular/plural noun, but rather a word with multiple meanings.  But when used as a synonym for "item," it does take an s on the plural.  (And I'm a US English speaker, btw).

Joe
Thursday, August 5, 2004

Detail can be a count or uncount noun. So 'detail' can be singular or uncountable depending on context.

Stephen Jones
Friday, August 6, 2004

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