"Nine judges are listening."

I thought that you generally use the singular noun... Why do you use the plural in this case?

What do you mean "special people" numbers? I swear, I did Irish for 13 years in school and I still do not get the ridiculous rules involved in numbering. We've been told all along you use the singular when following a number and now there are "special" ones where you do use the plural (when using the plural always would make more sense anyway!) How are you supposed to distinguish what is special and what isn't??