singular vs plural

[JOSEPH E. LAFERRIERE]

I must respectfully disagree with my distinguished colleague
Tom Lammers. My mother used to teach English, you understand.
Compare the following series of sentences:

The family Asteraceae is a family of angiosperms.
The Asteraceae is a family of angiosperms.

In the first, the word "Asteraceae" is clearly a noun in
apposition. In the second, this is still true despite the
absence of the noun, "family." The second sentence
is simply an abbreviated version of the first. Saying
"Family" twice would be boring, so we leave one of them out.
One could just as easily say

The family Asteraceae is a of angiosperms.

but this would be silly.
   A parallel example would be

I want the red popsicle and the green popsicle.
I want the red popsicle and the green one.

In English we stick in the word "one" as a pronoun
to replace the missing noun, but in some other languages,
they don't even bother with that. In Spanish, por ejemplo,

Quiero la paleta roja y la paleta verde.
Quiero la paleta roja y la verde.

--
Dr. Joseph E. Laferriere
"Computito ergo sum ...  I link therefore I am."