Talk:Plurale tantum

Gallows
Although 'gallows' comes from a plural middle-english word, it is no longer a plurale tantum. It's just the same as its plural form. You can say "A gallows is being constructed." — Dazmax (talk) 19:22, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Hebrew word elohim is not a plurale tantum
The word has two distinct meanings which are being mistakenly intertwined to create the impression that it is a plurale tantum

1. "Judges" - As in Exodus 21:6 "and his master will bring him before the judges" (Heb. Elohim / אלוהים). In this context the word is the plural form of the noun El / אל which refers to any kind of power.

2. One of the names of God - As in Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God (Heb. Elohim) created...". In this context the word is a proper noun, not a plural.

Two mouthed sword (talk) 16:05, 24 September 2015 (UTC)


 * At the time shortly before the Reunification of Germany, people began to speak of the two Germanies. The word Germanies is a Proper noun that is also plural in grammatical Number. The two conditions are not mutually exclusive.


 * Nuttyskin (talk) 14:06, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Swedish inälvor is not pluralia tantum
Since it has a singular form inälva (see sv:wikt:inälva). It is true that is typically used only in the plural form, but this does not qualify it strictly as a pluralia tantum. At least, a distinction should be made between words which do not have a singular form, and those who have such a form but it is rarely in use. בוקי סריקי (talk) 09:37, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Feces isn't either
The singular is fex. It's simply not used very often. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.204.139 (talk) 06:56, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be faex in Latin? Nonetheless, I cannot find such usage in corpora of English, the apropos language. YMMV.
 * 146.198.137.112 (talk)^ —Preceding undated comment added 04:24, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Scissors
LOL! Vzeebjtf (talk) 03:01, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Is/ Are
In the first paragraph we have "plurale tantum is..." and in the second paragraph we have "plurale tantum are..." But which it is to be?? A loose noose (talk) 08:23, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Entrails
Entrail exists as a singular or uncountable noun, though it is not common. Examples (all from books): '' Each entrail is sealed in its Canopic Vase... The third is belonging to the entrails, or the proper substance of each entrail... a single feather shaft carefully wrapped up in a piece of entrail... He threw himself to the side but too late—the blade snagged a piece of entrail and snipped it neatly in two...'' 850 C (talk) 19:12, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Riches
Although apparently plural in form, the noun riches is in fact a cognate of the French uncountable noun richesse, meaning "wealth". The spelling comes from Old French.

Nuttyskin (talk) 14:12, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Alms vs money
The semantic logic behind Russian for "money" being plural-only is precisely that it stands "for collections which, like alms and feces/faeces, cannot conceivably be singular" - whereas Russian for "alms" is singular, like English for "money". The situation is perfectly symmetric, and so the article saying one is obvious and dismissing the other as illogical is a glaring bias of a monolingual speaker of the language the article is written in, and is not useful information that it is supposed to be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Strecosaurus (talk • contribs) 02:49, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Swedish Pengar
Pengar is not a plural tantum, the singular "peng" is rarer than the plural but not wrong for the meaning of "money", and quite common in the sense of "a piece of money". — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikidCabbage (talk • contribs) 11:57, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Title of article (maybe better as "pluralia tantum")
There's no doubt that "Plurale tantum" is the Latin singular form, but when English-speaking linguists refer to the phenomenon in general, they usually do so under the name "Pluralia tantum" (and might be surprised by seeing "Plurale tantum" as the title of this article, as I was). None of the various dictionaries of linguistics on my shelves has an entry for "Plurale tantum", but two of them have an entry for "Pluralia tantum": The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics by Peter H Matthews (1997, ISBN 0-19-280008-6) and ''A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics"' by David Crystal (5th edition 2003, ISBN 0-631-22664-8)... AnonMoos (talk) 06:06, 15 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia's policy says Article titles (eg noun, noun phrase, Plural form of words ending in -us), and this is in keeping with usage elsewhere. For example, the Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar's entry is plurale tantum and this this Merriam-Webster online article about it/them happily, even necessarily,uses both singular and plural. NebY (talk) 10:24, 15 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, and Naming_conventions_(plurals) has a number of exceptions, such as "Articles on items such as scissors or handcuffs are not located at awkward, unnatural titles like scissor or handcuff".  There's also the question, of course, whether "Plurale tantum" is an English singular, or just the Latin singular.  It's simply a fact that "pluralia tantum" is far more established as a name of the general phenomenon among academic linguists.  If this is a linguistics article, then it should presumably have the title which linguists use, by WP:COMMONNAME... AnonMoos (talk) 23:13, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The term may be established among linguists but it's a grammatical term not restricted to linguists or invented by them - again, cf noun, noun phrase, etc. Even if this was a linguistics article, we'd follow our own article naming style rather than the naming style of a couple of (linguistics) dictionaries. I read WP:COMMONNAME quite differently, noting that we have Polio not Poliomyelitis, even though that's a medical article, and Aspirin rather than acetylsalicylic acid, though that is a pharmacological, chemical and medical article. NebY (talk) 16:37, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Very obvious reason for Dutch 'hersenen'
Not sure why the article insinuates there's no obvious reason for the Dutch word 'hersenen' (brain) to be plurale tantum? As the article itself states in the opening: "pluralia tantum are often words that denote objects that occur or function as pairs". A brain is two brain halves working as a pair. So it's really not a mystery where the plurale tantum comes from.

And with speakers of Swedish and Russian giving similar comments on those examples, that leaves the "sometimes there's no obvious reasons for a plurale tantum" claim with no examples to back it up. Yuki Izumi (talk) 21:12, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * We're not really in a position to accept your and other user's personal reasoning about why a Dutch, Swedish, or Russian term uses plurale tantum. Need reliable sources on their usage and etymology. That said, "sometimes there's no obvious reasons for a plurale tantum" also needs a source (and WP doesn't use contractions like "there's").  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:30, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I found the statement in question (which didn't read what you quoted), and removed it, since it's unsourced, and seems to be challenged by multiple parties here. But that's not cause to go inject those examples with personally-reasoned-out explanations for them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:32, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Should feces be included?
Is there a source on feces being plural? I was under the impression that it was a mass noun since it refers to a material. TornadoLGS (talk) 21:38, 15 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Collins dictionary describes it as plural and "from Latin faeces, plural of faex, sediment, dregs." Before I read that, I first tried reading our article Feces with singular verbs (Feces is the solid or semi-solid remains of food ... Feces is discharged through ...); it didn't work. NebY (talk) 21:57, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I figure I kind of assumed it since its synonyms are used as mass nouns. Treating it as a mass noun still sounds natural, but if the dictionary treats it as plural... TornadoLGS (talk) 04:02, 16 July 2024 (UTC)