My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

Doctors  Payne  and  Betterman  were  speaking  at  the  conference  (there  is  more
than one doctor, but only one called Payne and only one called Betterman).
Bertie and Bingo were both idle but amiable men-about-town .
The media is the message
In addition to those mentioned above, here are a few more words whose origins
we  seem  to  have  forgotten,  but  in  these  cases  –  because  the  plural  forms  don’t
end  in  s  –  we  are  beginning  to  use  them  as  singulars.  Lots  of  perfectly  literate
people now say (and some even write) The data was incorrect or The media is very
hostile  to  government  policy  ,  but  the  purists  still  cling  on  to  the  distinction
between singular and plural.