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Which one is the correct one?

Do you have any thought on this?

Do you have any thoughts on this?

I've seen this post https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/134134/just-another-random-thoughts-thought that said 'thoughts' is plural. So, isn't the correct one should be the first one?

But then when I search it on Google Ngram, it seems that 'thoughts' is the correct one. Can someone enlight me, please?

Community
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4 Answers4

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Seems like you are using this in everyday speech or in a casual email.

So if you are just asking for feedback or ideas, you can use simpler phrases like:

Thoughts?

Any thoughts?

What do you think?

Victor Wu
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The use of 'any' seems to imply that there could ber several of the follwong word. So the second example is correct. Just as you could say 'Do you have any brothers?' But there are exceptions, such as 'Do you have any idea'.

You could say 'Do you have a thought on this' for the singular case.

  • When any is used as "more than zero", use the plural form, as you suggest. The other usage might be described as "even one", something along the lines of "Do you have even one idea what you've done?", though the phrasing is not idiomatic. In this case, use the singular. – Lawrence Aug 25 '16 at 02:01
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"Just Another Random Thought" is the proper title if the writer is only presenting one main thought (whether or not it has other auxiliary thoughts included).

I'd say the use of "another" is what is confusing you here here. An other (or one other can only be used for singular things. Another thought. Another giraffe. Another telephone call. If the writer is presenting several unrelated lines of thought in their post, their title should be simply "Just Random Thoughts."

  • Thank you for your interest in the question, but this is actually a question and answer site, not a forum. Each answer that you post in an answer box is expected to stand alone as an answer to the question. Please consider either updating your answer or deleting it. Discussion is welcome in [chat]. – MetaEd Aug 25 '16 at 15:38
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If you have a look at the dictionary there some uses of thought in singular. Of course, in that case you have to refer to a single thought.

But you are not asking:

Don't you have a single thought?

You are asking more general for anything the addressee is thinking about the matter in question. Thus, you are not asking for a single thought.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

So from context you are asking you want the plural. Grammatically you can actually use both, there is nothing in the sentence that suggests that thought has to be singular or plural. Any takes both plural and singular nouns when being a determiner. As you have already found out, the variant with the plural thoughts is much more common.

I am not going into detail about any and the nouns that can follow, as there is already a question regarding that.

Helmar
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