David W. McCoyShould it be “business rule engine” or “business rules engine?” Should “rule” be singular or plural? “Should be” and “is” are two different concepts. Take a look at the search results below. The inconsistent use of both the plural and the singular abounds. Why should “business rules management” (plural) dominate while “business rule management system” (singular) is more popular? Sure, this is absolutely not a valid test. The results were fluid (not sure why some raw counts varied sharply from search to search), and of course, web search results aren’t used to adjudicate word-choice debates. But Google is a great “Everyman” source of popular language usage, and this sampling shows that we have a usage issue.
Here are the search results from October 20, 2008 (quote-delimited term, unfiltered results). The percentages represent the relative “popularity” split between the paired terms.
- “business rules management” – 64%
- “business rule management” – 36%
- “business rule management system” – 60%
- “business rules management system” – 40%
- “business rules engine” – 74%
- “business rule engine”- 26%
- “rules engine” – 61%
- “rule engine” – 39%
Even though the plural seems to dominate, I prefer the singular as in “business rule X” – business rule management, business rule engine, business rule management system. I will continue to prefer the singular until I see all these phrases in everyday use, by otherwise smart people:
- Ice creams shop – Hey! All those flavors… must be plural, right? [162 hits on Google]
- Pests control company – Yes, I do want more than one pest controlled, thank you. [9 hits on Google]
- Dentists office – That just sounds silly. It also sounds scary since that is where I will be tomorrow. [Way too many hits on Google even if many of them are the plural possessive form ending in s']
Caveats: My review is limited to English, and to my own preferences. As you read my Gartner research, expect to see the singular, until I start writing about Business Processes Management… almost too revolting to imagine.
As usual, all opinions welcomed and many tolerated. There is likely a simple explanation for all this, but I tend to think we are just seeing the laxity of language at work – an irony since rules are all about semantic precision. Oh well! Or, would “Oh wells!” be more appropriate?
Category: Business Process Management (BPM) Business Rule Management (BRM) Rabble-Rousing and General Hoopla Tags: Business Process Management (BPM), Business Rule Management (BRM), David McCoy, Gartner
2 responses so far ↓
1 Richard Veryard October 22, 2008 at 5:48 am
On the singular side, we have Asset Management and Command-and-Control (not Commands-and-Controls)
But on the plural side we have Data Management, People Management and Sales Management.
If there is a pattern here, I haven’t spotted it.
Customer Relationship Management is an interesting one, because it is all about having multiple relationships with the same customer, as well as perhaps having the same (generic) relationship with many different customers. So why isn’t that Customers Relationships Managements? Or something.
2 19 Pages of Ruined Lives October 22, 2008 at 5:19 pm
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