Talk:feces

Use with a singular verb
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)


 * 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)


 * I think it's like . 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)


 * 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)


 * 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:


 * gets 2 hits, "but feces has" gets none; "but feces are" gets 28, "but feces have" gets 1
 * "but faeces is" gets 1 hit, "but faeces has" gets none; "but faeces are" gets 19, "but faeces have" gets 5
 * "while feces is" gets 7 hits, "while feces has" gets none; "while feces are" gets 24, "while feces have" gets 1
 * "whereas feces is" gets 3 hits, "whereas feces are" gets 2 hits (and 2 duplicates)


 * 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 [//en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=feces&diff=25506532&oldid=25506114 this usage note]?

- -sche (discuss) 01:16, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
 * 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)
 * 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)
 * My inclination matches Angr's. I wonder whether this is a pondian difference. &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 16:25, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * For me, both "feces" and "data" are singular mass nouns. 16:29, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * But what's your dialect? (Though I linked to a description of my dialect, above, let me be explicit: it's American English.) &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 16:42, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Dublin English in pronunciation, but with many other influences because I've never lived in an English-speaking place. 16:48, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * 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)
 * Thanks much. So I guess it's primarily plural everywhere (and perhaps more so in Rightpondia). &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 20:54, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * 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)

Primary spelling in English
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))


 * 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)

Singular versus plural — overlooking uncountable
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))