How many English words do you know in which the singular means an individual from a strictly defined group, but the plural of the same word means that strictly defined group and the opposite of the defined group and everything in between?
Edited for clarity.
is there a prize? I know this one.
The prize is the knowledge of the appropriate use of the words. I’m pretty certain you already have one of those, Brenda.
I counted and I came up with 73 words.
Ok then, list them.
*sigh*
Man/Men.
You also don’t take a dump anywhere, you leave it.
You regularly take your car to a verb, not a noun, to get it cleaned.
English is fucked up all over, but it’s all linguistic legacy code. You’re not gonna get people to drop C by inventind C++. You’re just gonna confuse people.
Just a word of warning.
Close, but not quite.
One?
Oh, sorry, no. Zero! What’s my prize?
Please tell it =) is it something political eg “common and commons”???
wow, I don’t think I know any…
(followed from planet.ubuntu btw)
Sheep :)
Plural iis opposite to the notion of but ncludes the singular sheep and, indeed the whole flock :)
Sheep does not include the opposite of sheep.
The singular noun “woman” refers to an individual from a strictly defined goup.
The plural “women” refers to more than one woman, and to the strictly defined group.
The plural “women” is also used in a derogatory way to refer to men percieved as weak in character, which is a group opposite to the defined group.
The male grouping who use the plural “women” to denote males of weak character, also perceive “weakness of character” to include gay men, transexuals, and intersexed individuals etc. And so will refer to all these in between states as “women” in a derogatory fashion.
The one doubt I have in making this suggested answer is that the singular “woman” is also used in these derogatory ways, and the question does not mention that the singular should also refer to the opposite and everthing in between.
Best wishes, Helen (wildnfree)
I believe you’re thinking of “guy”. I was going to quote some Hofstadter, but it’s been done before. If this essay wasn’t where you encountered this particular pair of words then I can second the quoter’s recommendation.
(Tangentially, you may be interested (or irritated, dismayed, etc.) to know that your homepage is full of invisible spam.)
Oh, I was wondering when that would hit. My blog is 2.8.4 too, so that means the latest version is not impervious. Oh joy.
As for the main point of your comment; no, I’ve not read Hofstadter (it has been on my todo list for a while — and I suspect I’m going to find it a very agreeable read), this was just a little commentary about a few LUG mailing lists and speakers of late.
@tom:
I don’t think “guy” works in general. There are four common ways people use “guy”:
1. only males
2. only males in the singular, a group with at least one male in the plural
3. only males in the singular, all groups in the plural
4. everyone
In general, most understand “guy”/”guys” to be some subset of these, generally starting at 1 and working up. Using (1) “guy” for a male or “guys” for a group of males is pretty universal, using (2) is somewhat less so, and so on. So “guy” only matches the requirements of this post if most people accept 1,2,3 and don’t accept 4. I accept 4, my parents (late 50s) don’t accept 3 or 4.
To be fair, I can’t think of anything better than “guy” right now.
You were obviously thinking about guy/guys, but I’m sure other examples exist.
OTOH, as a point of reference, this is quite normal in most romance languages, which have 2 plurals for most words (including conjugations of verbs): one being male/mixed, and one being female.
The point is that there are none that genuinely fit the description. This is, in English, a misuse of terminology.
Confused.