As well, fewer keywords are plural, compared to singular, so there's less chance of accidentally using a keyword if you use plurals
Haven't yet seen an "octopus" table in production...
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/d5f2f...
> Yes, this is the same version as I found, but the closest thing I could find to addressing table names in the paper itself was an "Object Class name", something like an OOP Class or something you'd find in a UML diagram, but not really the same as a table name, and in any case all the examples were singular.
> Was actually kinda hoping Celko would deign to comment on this himself as he seems to be the chief proponent of the "collective identifiers as specified by ISO 11179" meme.
Page 10, SQL For Smarties (Celko), 5th Ed
If Celko says it's right, it's right
https://www.ftb.ca.gov/aboutFTB/Projects/ITSP/Part_5_Naming_...
The word "collective" doesn't show up in the document.
The word "plural" shows up twice, both times in item #a of "Lexical rules":
> a) Nouns are used in singular form only. Verbs (if any) are in the present tense.
> NOTE In Japanese, this rule shall not be applied because of no plural form of nouns and no distinction of verb tense.
The only reference on Wikipedia to the ISO 11179 standard making that recommendation has since been deleted for being unsubstantiated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Data_element_name...
edit: The apparently inaccurate content is talked about on the "Data element name" Talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Data_element_name