Why use acre instead of acres in the sentence, "The 10 acre property was transferred to the city"?

boghat

I'm pretty sure it's because when you say The [10 acre] property, 10 acre here is acting as a kind of adjective describing property. When you say The property is ten acres, acres here is the plural form of a noun and ten is the adjective describing it. When you are using acre as a unit of measurement it's not plural but when you are talking about acre as "lands" or "property" then it is plural. Dictionary.com: a·cre –noun 1. a common variable unit of land measure, now equal in the U.S. and Great Britain to 43,560 square feet or 1/640 square mile (4047 square meters). 2. acres, a. lands; land: wooded acres. b. Informal. large quantities: acres of Oriental rugs. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/acre This seems to be the case with all units of measurement, not just acre; feet, meters, grams, etc. Oct 11 07, 6:10 AM

Baloo55th

Six inch ruler, 10 pound note - the (six inch) is an adjective (OK, an adjectival phrase) and is one unit. The ruler was six inches long - it really was, I counted all six of them; they are six units. Apart from these logical explanations, the English language can seem illogical and irrational at times, because the rules are drawn from widely differing sources, Oct 11 07, 1:10 PM