Talk:third party

I don't really want to become an editor of Wiktionary, as I mainly work in Wikipedia, but I thought I'd tell you that this term is not generally used as an "uncountable" noun. It is, moreover, a completely illogical term in both singular and plural forms, in spite of its popularity in the U.S. That popularity is based on political bias to entrench further the 2-party system. In Wikipedia I have added:

(The term, while widely used in the U.S., is illogical, as it wrongly implies that several parties are tied for third place.)

- Korky Day, Vancouver, BC, Canada.


 * For a noun to be countable means that a numerical counter may be used ahead of the noun. One does not say, "There were five third parties."  There can only ever be one "third party" in a discussion.  Additional parties become the fourth, fifth, etc.  So, the noun is not countable, and actually carries instead some properties of a proper noun. --EncycloPetey 23:06, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

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This is really off to a great start. However, a thesaurus feature would be invaluable. Even the addition of a few synonyms would help greatly.