Summon or Summons?

 • John’s house is really in a shamble. 


The word ‘shamble’ as used in the above sentence renders the sentence non-standard. The correct version of the word is ‘shambles’. When something is in a shambles, it is in a mess.  Many nouns in this category are actually singular nouns, the letter ‘s' in them is just part of their spelling. Other examples include: summons, means, logistics, etc. 

Therefore we say:

• John’s house is really in a shambles. 

• The media magnate was served a summon. ( non-standard) 

• The media magnate was served a summons. ( standard) 

It should be noted that the plural of summons is summonses. 


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