<p>How to determine if its that of vs. those of....</p>
<p>David has been accused of pursuing an artistic and political rebellion that is bolder and louder than THAT of his predecessors.</p>
<p>Company officials announced that there would be no major changes made to the eligibility requirements for its benefit package, an offering that makes its plan more generous than THOSE OF other major retailers.</p>
<p>These sentences are apparently correct, however, I think they should be switched. Can you help me to determine when to use singular vs plural.</p>
<p>“That of” refers to a singular object- in this case rebellion. The first sentence is referring to a singular rebellion that had been started by David’s predecessors (the predecessors had all collectively started this ONE rebellion).</p>
<p>“Those of” is used when there is more than one object in question. The benefit package offered by the “company officials” is more generous than ALL of the the packages offered by other major retailers (each retailer of, say 12, has a benefit package).</p>
<p>One thing that could possibly help with differentiating between these two is that “that of” can be [sometimes crudely] replaced by “the ONE of” and still be comprehensible, as “those of” can be replaced by “the ONES of”.</p>
<p>I don’t quite agree with the conclusion about the correctness of the first sentence or the explanation above.</p>
<p>Stripped down to their basic form the two sentences are “almost” grammatically identical.</p>
<p>(1) David is pursuing a rebellion that is bolder than THAT of his predecessors.</p>
<p>(2) The company’s plan is more generous than THOSE of other retailers.</p>
<p>In the first, David’s rebellion is compared to the rebellions of his predecessors. In the second the company’s plan is compared to the plans of other companies.</p>
<p>By using the singular “that”, the rebellion would mean that there is a universal shared rebellion at the heart of the discussion. Maybe that’s the case, and if so the sentence is correct. However if the notion of rebellion is such that each person has his own unique rebellion than THOSE would make more sense.</p>
<p>For the second, it’s implicit that each company has its own plan, and the plans differ, so the plural is “obvious”.</p>
<p>@fogcity
The fact that the sentence uses “boldER and loudER” means it’s comparing two objects, one being David’s “rebellion” and the second being his “predecessors” rebellion.</p>
<p>Fogcity is correct. You can usually determine which is proper by simply putting in the referenced noun in singular and plural form in place of the “that” or “those.” In other words, if you replace the “that” with “the rebellion” or “the rebellions” in the first sentence, which sounds correct? You really cannot tell in the first sentence without assuming there is only a prior singular rebellion and that is not an automatic assumption. Replace the “those” in the second sentence with “the plan” or “the plans” and it becomes obvious that it should be “plans” because companies will have different ones, and thus “those” is correct.</p>
<p>I don’t think a singular object is specified. It could be ‘the rebellions of’ or ‘the rebellion of’ (in place of ‘that of’). Thus, wouldn’t both ‘that of’ and ‘those of’ be correct?</p>
<p>The first sentence is ambiguous because it could be referring to either rebellion or rebellions and thus “that” or “those.” However, whether it is correct depends on the question asked. If the question is simply whether the sentence is correct with “that” in it, then it is correct even though it could also be “those.” If the question is intead which one is correct, that or those, then you cannot validly answer it unless one of the possible answers is that it could be either.</p>