Category talk:English pluralia tantum

RFC

There are several words in this list that do have a singular.eg: jaw, thread, wheel, number. They may have special usage in the plural, but they clearly relate back to the singular. -User:Richardb

I don't see a problem with any of these. They obviously relate back to a singular, otherwise they couldn't have a plural, hence couldn't be pluralia tanum. Ncik 12:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

What do we do with compounds like alternate angles, orthogonal polynomials? These can't be used in singular but are not really pluralia tantum either since the non-existence of the singulars is caused by the adjectives in these phrases rather than the nouns, which are the headwords. Ncik 12:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Wrong

If there IS a singulat they are not plurale tantum. Scissors doesn't even really count, Scissors is an action, not plural, they're scissors because the scissor.

Proper Nouns

"The United States (of America)" is a plurale tantum proper noun. We do not say "the United State", however we use it in the singular, "The United States is big", whereas other languages say "are".

I hate English

• I agree that some of the words are questionable and the list needs to be looked at, but keep in mind some words are homonyms, i.e. jaws can be either a top jaw and bottom jaw or "the jaws of life," in this case being similar to scissors. The words do need to be looked at a lot closer though.
• I'm not sure if the United States should be on the list because the name is derived from the states that united against the British. In terms of etemology, united is an adjective and states is a plural noun. In colloquial terms, however, you do have a point that it is often used as a pluralia tantum. Then again, "gonna" is colloquially used as a verb, but it is not one grammatically. My personal view of wikipedia is that if there's doubt, don't put it up because people like to assume what's on here is verified 100% true. —This unsigned comment was added by 71.213.224.137 (talk • contribs) 2006-07-10 08:45:29.

From RFC

"From: WT:RFC"

There are several words in this list that do have a singular.eg: jaw, thread, wheel, number. They may have special usage in the plural, but they clearly relate back to the singular word.--Richardb 15:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

But can those "special usage" forms be used in the plural? --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't get what you mean ? Take the example of "Wheels".To me the usage is clearly just the plural of the word "wheel". Unlike trousers or measles. There simply is no such thing as "a trouser" or "a measle". But there sure is "a wheel", "a thread", "a jaw".--Richardb 14:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Depends on the definition. If by "wheels" you mean either a metonymic for an "automobile" or the sland definition of "muscular legs", then the singular "wheel" would not make sense. So, for those definitions, "wheels" is not referrable to the singular. --EncycloPetey 00:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

That should really be noted though. Having said that, some of these are just out-and-out wrong. I don't think 'sweets' has any special use in the plural. I'm a serial dieter and I only ever eat one sweet at a time... I think someone should just delete all the dodgy ones because they're really misleading. -- Emma

Anal Beads?

Is there really some legitimate reason that the list has an entry for "anal beads" but not one for "beads," or is this a case of someone trying to be funny? Also, I would not think there should even be an entry for "beads," since one can speak of a single bead on a string, or making a beaded necklace, one bead at a time, or is this incorrect? --Agiar2000 15:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Antipode?

I know that the origin of "antipodes" was as a plurale tantum, but if I read Dictionary.com correctly, then it would seem that we have had a singular back formation, "antipode" for several centuries. Cannot one speak of the "antipode" of a certain point or thing? The way it looks to me, perhaps "antipodes" is no longer a plurale tantum, and thus should be removed from this list.

antipode. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved November 17, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/antipode

--Agiar2000 15:38, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Beans?

Even the wiktionary article for beans does not seem to indicate that there is no singular sense, "bean." Indeed we more often speak of beans than we do of a bean, but surely we do not think it odd or meaningless of someone to refer to a single bean, the way we would think of someone referring to a pant or a scissor, or am I wrong? Perhaps it is in this list because of the slang usage of beans as drugs in pill form, but because that is really a more marginal sense, it seems inappropriate here to me. Does anyone disagree?

--Agiar2000 15:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

No disagreement recorded in over a decade.

But I think your conclusion is correct. Even if there is an obscure slang form in which only the plural tends to be used, the word is included on the list. Peanuts also looked iffy at first. The trouble is that the list doesn't indicate which sense(s) of the words listed are intended. —DIV (1.145.49.50 10:35, 16 November 2021 (UTC))

This category has far too many entries included

This category needs weeding (or possibly subdividing): it is too indiscriminate to be useful at present. 54.240.197.235 10:46, 26 April 2017 (UTC)