Talk:trainers

RFD
rfd-sense: '(UK, usually plural) Shoes used for sports play or training'. Redundant to 'plural of trainer'. It's not a plural only noun, just more common in the plural than the singular. I would rather trainer say. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * We would then have to delete sneakers for the same reason. I've no strong preference either way.    D b f  i  r  s   18:38, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks redundant to me, not that I speak British English. &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 19:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Sneakers does say (and I quote) 'sneakers (plural only) (singular sneaker)'. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:32, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * ... so are you claiming that Americans can't lose one sneaker? Shouldn't we match the entry at "trainers" with that at "sneakers"?    D b f  i  r  s   08:58, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oi. That ought to go on WT:-) (the sneakers entry you quote, Mg). How can it have a singular if it's plural only? I say move the info for sneakers, trainers and all similar entries to the singular; the word "shoes" itself is more common in the plural (26 million Books hits) than in the singular (16 million), but the content is at shoe. - -sche (discuss) 09:53, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. The main entry should be the singular, as for plimsolls: and daps:. SemperBlotto 10:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It is not that hard to find cites for "left trainer" at bgc with the right sense of "trainer". But I don't see why we don't have a definition at the plural for this: "A pair of training shoes. (See trainer.)" The essence of the matter, IMO, is that it normally refers to a pair not any grouping of multiple training shoes. DCDuring TALK 13:59, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
 * There are many things, especially body parts and associated articles, that normally occur in pairs; and therefore, there are many nouns whose plurals usually implicitly refer to pairs. I'm not sure that the form-of entries are the best place to document this. —Ruakh TALK 15:51, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It may not be the best place, but it seems to be one natural place to do so. It is probably the only place where the matter can be treated without a usage note formatted using . We treat lexically many things that are arguably the consequences of rules. Also, I draw attention to [[trouser]]. DCDuring TALK 16:43, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Since you drew attention there, isn't there a UK-vs-US difference regarding underwear vs outerwear for this word? Here in the US trousers are synonymous with pants. I was under the impression that in the UK trousers are what you wear under your pants. If so, it would seem to be worth mentioning in the entry. Chuck Entz 14:56, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * No you're entirely wrong, which is why the entry doesn't mention it. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:57, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reality check. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:26, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I see my mistake: I had trousers and pants switched. Pants is the one that can be used for undergarments. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:39, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete. Redundant. — Ungoliant (Falai) 23:33, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep It seems to reflect usage. Certainly sneakers out-occurs sneaker by 4:1, with ''pair of sneakers only constituting 10% of the plural. It would be tedious to confirm similarity of relative frequency of this, though it might be feasible at BNC. DCDuring TALK 00:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep per DCDuring. bd2412 T 17:40, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * What if we keep it like this? - -sche (discuss) 05:11, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that is a fine idea. bd2412 T 04:42, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks good for this entry and those where the plural is sufficiently (?) more common than the singular. DCDuring TALK 14:27, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Wait, is this really exclusively UK? I feel like it is used in the US as well. --WikiTiki89 14:53, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The regional usage is neither controversial nor set in stone. Feel free to make any revisions to the context based on facts (eg, Google News with allows you to specify US, UK, etc as locations, or COCA vs BNC) or just informed intuition. My uninformed intuition says that in the US trainers sometimes might be short for cross-trainers, in turn shorter for cross-training shoe.
 * The controversy, which is not fully based on facts, is more about the treatment of items that are much more commonly used in the plural. DCDuring TALK 19:17, 11 December 2012 (UTC)