Talk:evidence

evidencia

"evidencia" is for the time being a false friend, except in the medical field, although this fact is rapidly changing.

In Spanish, "evidencia" refers to something that is obvious, immediately apparent. Using "evidencia" to refer to individual pieces of evidence used to support a theory that is *not* obvious can really muddy communication.

Don't have time to edit the text but I'd say "pruebas" for evidence in a trial, and "indicios" or "pistas" or even "datos" in other contexts.

Plural "evidences"

I came across the phrases:

"of colours, there are evidences of great ingenuity" -- H. E. Dudeney, Amusements in Mathematics

"In all this, it may be said, the fact of evolution has been taken for granted, but what are the evidences? Perhaps it should be frankly" -- J. A. Thomson, The Outline of Science

"Other evidences of the origin of the barrel-organ are not wanting." -- Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed. From "Barrel-Organ"

The above suggests that the noun evidence may be infrequently countable, and that evidences may be a plural noun. --Zipf 02:00, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I marked the noun as possibly countable. --Ivan Štambuk 10:29, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

There's a nice discussion on the correctness of the word "evidences" on the English Stack Exchange. Their conclusion, based on the Oxford English Dictionary, is that "evidences" is an obsolete word.

Unsigned comment added by User:Fernio, 23:54, 8 August 2016‎

It's probably most common these days in World Englishes, e.g. in India or Singapore, rather than the traditional Inner Circle. Equinox ◑ 00:38, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Sounds about right.

At evidences...

I added a Usage Note to evidences:

As a noun, the word evidence is usually treated as uncountable. Thus, enumeration would generally follow a formulation such as, "Five pieces of evidence were submitted. That evidence was highly convincing." It would rarely be expressed as, "Five evidences were submitted. Those evidences were highly convincing."

Possibly it could also be labelled (dated? India??). Otherwise there was no hint of the standing of that word.

At evidence...

I don't think the same Usage Note necessarily needs to be duplicated in this entry, but it's an option given that the 'average user' might skim "(usually uncountable, plural evidences)" and come away with the false impression that evidences is the 'correct' form to use when dealing with multiple pieces of evidence.

I'm ambivalent, but maybe I'll add it just to be bold (cf. be bold).

—DIV (1.145.110.167 02:34, 2 April 2023 (UTC))