Discussion Groups / British English / May 2006

In English you would say marble as plural as well. Marbles are
children's glass balls used as toys.

Materials continuing to make history is correct English, except that it
sounds wrong to an English speaker as a slogan.

An English speaker would say something like...

Marble, the stuff of history.

or

The Material of history.

I would choose the first

Apart from the fact that the Aztecs were very much later than the
Classical Romans (and did they use marble?). By the way, "marble" is the
stone, "marbles" are little glass balls that children play with.

It's not very snappy. "The Material of History", or "The Stuff of
History" perhaps. Don't know how that would go down in a US context
though. "Enduring History". "History Set in Stone".....

Paul Burke

Marble. The bedrock of history.

If you are talking about the stuff that statues are made from, then it is
"marble", in the singular. If you were talking about a collection of
statues made from marble, then they would be "marbles" in the plural (as
in the "Elgin marbles" now in the British Museum).

So I think you want "material" in the singular, and the correct
translation would be "Material that made history". But it really needs an
article ("A" or "The") in front of it in order to sound right.

If you want to use the word "material" even if you are talking about a
collection of marble statues, then I think you would still need it in the
singular. You would only use the plural "materials" if you were talking
about several different materials, e.g. "marble", "granite" and "limestone".