My Bellows Is Fine

[David R Munson]

One of my favorite cover shots to be sure...

[Clive Kenyon]

Well folks, I am truly humbled at your mastery of the English language. Who was it said we are a nation divided by a common language?

Anyway, in Yorkshire bulls bellow and cows low! 'Bovine' is half of a nasty disease that badgers are reputed to spread and cattle used to be seen only on weekend matinees such as 'Rawhide'.

As for my own bellows - well they is fine, certainly at 105mm, but I am replacing them anyway to prevent possible embarrasment when my super new ancient long lens arrives.

DONNA@leefilters.com quotes #80 - ($120 and dropping)inclusive, to replace my 'Baby' Linhof 6x9 leather bellows with synthetic. This is far less than I had expected and I just wanted you all to share that fact!

[Joshua L. Slocum]

According to Webster's Tenth Collegiate Dictionary, 'bellows' is a plural noun, but is singular or plural in construction. Before you "vote for 'are,'" gentlemen, think how that sounds.

Person A: "I think the bellows on my camera has a light leak." Person B: "I think the bellows on my camera have a light leak."

Personally, I think person B sounds silly. Yes, we know that the instrument in question is, in fact, a series of folds, and thus constitutes a plural thing. But in common parlance, we do not refer to the individual pieces, but rather to the collectivity - the bellows - that they form.

Yes, "Fish" and "Deer" are words that are both singular and plural, but they are conceptually different. We have just cause to refer to an individual fish - we may need to point out the one in the school that has red fins while others have blue, for example - or an individual deer, but we have no reason to refer to only one of the folds in a bellows, which is why it is an "it," not a "they." If we needed to point out the defect in one spot, we would refer to, say, the 6th fold OF the bellows as a whole, we wouldn't call it "the 6th bellow."

One last note: the letter 's' does not necessary denote plurality. When the court orders you to appear, you receive a summons, not a summon.