3 ms·

Pardon me if this question is stupid; I am not a native speaker and perhaps I am oblivious to certain nuances of English. That said, didn't the author mean this

• zhazam 15y ago
  Yes, "ultimate job killer" is the right way of writing it.
• wccrawford 15y ago
  This is one of the situations where it could go either way. Normally, you would say 'ultimate job killer', yes... But in this situation, we're talking about jobs in the abstract. It isn't killing a few particular positions here and there, but actually killing those job roles altogether. When the cotton gin was invented, it didn't just take a few jobs away, it eliminated the position of cotton picker. Nobody does that job any more because a machine was just too much better at it. (It probably invented a new position for the person who runs the machine, but that's a different point.)
  • jws 15y ago
    The cotton gin (1793) separates the cotton fibers from the seeds. The cotton still needs to be picked. Machines were eventually built to pick cotton but didn't get good until the 1950s, well after many blues and early country and western songs could be written about picking cotton. In a historical pre-echo, Ely Whitney spent a lot of time and money suing planters for making illegal copies of his cotton gin.
• Goladus 15y ago
  Using the singular would be standard, yes. I think in this case, though, I suspect it's used semi-intentionally because the plural "jobs" is more of a political buzzword than the singular. The issue is jobs, not any individual's job.