Talk:feces

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Latest comment: 1 year ago by 1.145.91.247 in topic Singular versus plural — overlooking uncountable
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Use with a singular verb[edit]

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Is feces used with plural verbs and pronouns, or singular ones, or can it be used with both? For example, is it grammatically correct to say "feces have always been considered unclean", "an animal that eats feces may be attracted to their odor"? Is it grammatically correct to say "feces has always been considered unclean", "an animal that eats feces may be attracted to its odor"? - -sche (discuss) 22:56, 8 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

It is always properly treated as plural, as far as I know. Your singular examples certainly sound wrong to me. 31.53.246.215 22:59, 8 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
I think it's like data. It's supposed to be plural, but a lot of people treat it as singular. But the singular treatment is probably rarer due to the -s making it sound more plural than data. --WikiTiki89 23:00, 8 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
While I find "the data has ..." quite acceptable, even to the extent of finding "the data have ..." slightly pedantic in some cases, "the f(a)eces has ..." just sounds impossible to me. 31.53.246.215 23:15, 8 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
Searches for "feces are" vs "feces is" turn up too much chaff for me to sift through (e.g. "the color of feces is", "pieces of feces are", where the singular- or plural-ness of the verb is due to an earlier word), but after some thought, I did come up with some decent searches:
Now that I check other dictionaries, I notice that Dictionary.com says "used with a plural verb", while TheFreeDictionary.com says "used with a sing. or pl. verb".
What do you think of this usage note?

- -sche (discuss) 01:16, 9 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'm surprised that anyone accepts such usage. I can only reiterate that, to me, a phrase like "feces has a strong smell" seems plain wrong. It would be interesting to see other people's opinions. 86.160.87.99 01:52, 9 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
My unexamined instinct is to treat feces as a singular mass noun (unlike data, which I carefully always treat as a plural noun), but Boogle Gooks Ngram Viewer suggests it has always been more commonly treated as a plural noun. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:48, 9 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
My inclination matches Angr's. I wonder whether this is a pondian difference.​—msh210 (talk) 16:25, 16 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
For me, both "feces" and "data" are singular mass nouns. —CodeCat 16:29, 16 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
But what's your dialect? (Though I linked to a description of my dialect, above, let me be explicit: it's American English.)​—msh210 (talk) 16:42, 16 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
Dublin English in pronunciation, but with many other influences because I've never lived in an English-speaking place. —CodeCat 16:48, 16 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
Good idea. If it were a Pondian difference, one would expect a difference in how often the American spelling "feces" took a singular vs plural verb, vs how often the British spelling "faeces" did. In the BNC, "faeces is" gets 8 hits, "faeces are" gets 6; in the COCA, "feces is" gets 6, "feces are" also gets 6... but these counts are unreliable because of the chaff I mention above, phrases like "the color of the feces is" and "piles of faeces are", where the singular- vs plural-ness of the verb is due to another word. In the BGC data I cite above, which I sifted the chaff out of, the ratio of singular to plural uses of "feces" is 12/56 (=0.21), while the ratio of s/p "faeces" is 1/24 (=0.04). - -sche (discuss) 19:56, 16 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
Thanks much. So I guess it's primarily plural everywhere (and perhaps more so in Rightpondia).​—msh210 (talk) 20:54, 16 February 2014 (UTC)Reply
I find it really weird to spell it like this: in my view it should always be a diphthong, "faeces". How do we handle dialect issues in Wictionary? Diomedea Exulans (talk) 21:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)Reply


Primary spelling in English[edit]

Is there a reason that all of the English definitions are provided under feces, whilst faeces effectively redirects (manually) to feces??

Of note, feces is labelled "(plural only) (Canada, US)", whereas faeces is labelled "(normally plural, singular faex)" and stated to be "UK, Canada, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand standard spelling".

On balance, looking at the above, I feel it rather should be the other way around. Is there a policy to help decide this?

—DIV (1.145.91.247 13:36, 3 November 2022 (UTC))Reply

We have no good solution to this at present, but it is often discussed. The worst solution is to copy everything to every spelling, and try to keep all edits synchronised across multiple entries. For now, we keep one full entry and others as alternative forms. Sometimes UK wins, sometimes USA does. Equinox 13:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Singular versus plural — overlooking uncountable[edit]

The discussion of whether to treat the English noun as singular or plural overlooks the prospect that it is (perhaps) sometimes treated as uncountable, cf. Talk:excreta. —DIV (1.145.91.247 13:47, 3 November 2022 (UTC))Reply