Please help a "English as second language person" to decide on yeses!

[SpacePuppy]

So, the situation is that I need to write a letter explaining a few things to someone, in this letter I need to refer to groups of items that has been through a selection process, in general there will be a group named "yes" a group named "no" and a group named "maybe". So if I want to refer to the group named "yes" in a sentence and I want to talk about them in a way of naming them ie "With regards to the items that were not selected as definite yeses..." Is that acceptable or did I just make up my own word?

[wheresthehamster]

I think the plurals are yesses and noes but I'm sure someone more educated will be along in a minute

[Bluestocking]

I'd stick to the singular and say "with regard to each item that was not selected as a definite 'yes'" but I think you could perfectly acceptably say "yeses" or "yesses". It's definitely "noes" though!

[choufleur]

In principle it sounds right but it looks odd. Would it be better to put something like "items that weren't selected in the yes group"?

I could be completely wrong though.

[lapsedrunner]

I'd go with the "yes group" idea.

[SpacePuppy]

Here is the whole paragraph, it sounds to long winded to me and I somehow don't like the "yeses" bit.

"As far as the selection process is concerned, we try our best to find selectors from all genre in ceramics and sometimes their personal taste do come through in the items that are selected to be on display, we therefore incorporate a ?maybe? option in the selection to allow us to have some discretion to display items that were not selected as definite yeses."

[MrsMuddle]

You could just end the sentence "that were not selected as definites."

(Also - sorry to be pedantic - it should be personal taste DOES come through.)

[SpacePuppy]

Thanks MrsMuddle, I find the way I was taught English is very different from what I experience in everyday life, it makes it difficult to know if your grammar is correct.

[WendyWeber]

How about "the items that were not selected as a yes"?

Would that work?

[MrsMuddle]

SpacePuppy, if you hadn't said English wasn't your first language, I wouldn't have known. You sound very fluent and natural. And your grammar is better than a lot of native speakers.

[verylittlecarrot]

Erm, MrsMuddle, if the sentence refers to "selectors" (plural), should not they have "personal tastes" (plural) as presumably they do not share one singular taste.

So should the sentence read

"... we try our best to find selectors from all genres in ceramics and sometimes their personal tastes do come through ...etc"

?

[MrsMuddle]

Yes. I didn't read the whole thing. And I've had a bottle of wine to drown my sorrows after the Scotland game. Sorry.

[NoNameToday]

Don't politicians use 'ayes' and 'noes'?

[SoupDragon]

I'd use "...not selected as a definite 'yes'"

[edam]

I'd say: "We try to find selectors from all genres of ceramics. Sometimes their personal tastes do affect the items that are chosen for display. We therefore have a ?maybe? option to allow us to display those items that were not universally approved." (or 'selected')