Talk:bacterias

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

Bacteria is the plural of bacterium but I find an awful lot of hits for bacterias, including 1640 at google books even after I change the filter to English only (some seemed to be Spanish). The best I can interpret is that in this sense Bacteria is a species of Bacteria and more than one species at a time is bacterias. But I don't find anything like this in other dictionaries. Anyone have an insight? Thank you. RJFJR 00:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid the most obvious explanation is likely to be the correct one: [[bacterias]] is the plural of the singular [[bacteria]]. On the first page of a Google News search for "bacteria-is" I found three uses of [[bacteria]] as a singular. There must be hundreds among the thousands of raw hits on the collocation. The following NY Times headline illustrates:

• 2002, AP, "Poultry Recall Expanded After Bacteria Is Found at Plant", in New York Times, Oct 14, 2002

Yes, "bacteria" is all too often used as a singular noun (as is, say, "phenomena"), but this is—to be unkind—an erroneous usage or—to be kinder—nonstandard English. -- WikiPedant 00:46, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I guess Merriam Webster and the New York Times don't count, due to their left-pondianism. Perhaps they should start amwikt or uswikt. DCDuring TALK 03:22, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Not seeing this in the online MW3... and the Times, like any paper, is bound to suffer the occasional stylistic slip. I daresay they've even published a typo from time to time. -- Visviva 03:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

IMO the usage (such as in the Times headline) to mean "a strain or species of bacteria" is defensible, since "Bacterium Found At Plant" would arguably be ambiguous. (only one, solitary bacterium? must be a darned hygienic plant!) (Not sure if "bacterias" is really the right plural for this though.)On the other hand, the horribly grating usage to mean "a single bacterium" -- as in "there's a bacteria in the corner of Figure 2" -- which I have heard and which has surely found its way into print, really should be tagged as an illiteracy. -- Visviva 03:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with that line of argument, since it would also defend "Poultry Recall Expanded After Viruses Is Found At Plant" (which avoids the ambiguity of singular (deprecated template usage) virus). But yes, it's defensible, in that irregular nouns tend to become regular over time, either through the formation of a regular plural, or through a non-plural-looking plural becoming countable-singular or uncountable. —Ruakh_TALK 12:13, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was trying to salvage some semblance of sanity, to avoid succumbing to the impression that the English language is collapsing around us... But I don't think that can be sustained any longer. Fare thee well, sivilizzayshun, we hardlee noo yee.  :-) -- Visviva 12:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the true number is closer to 800, after filtering for "-las," "-y", "-de" etc. I didn't look through all of them, but every one I did look at (that had limited preview) was written by an academic from a non-English-speaking country. In some cases there appeared to be free variation between "bacteria" and "bacterias"; in other cases it was a natural NNS error for "types of bacteria," as when referring to anaerobic bacteria plus aerobic bacteria as "both of these bacterias." Should be included, since English is a global language, but needs usage note. -- Visviva 03:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Two Issues: (1) I don't understand why "Etymology 2" has now been added to bacteria, when it invokes the same Latin root as "Etymology 1." I think that this singular usage should be acknowledged, but as a {{nonstandard}} sense under "Etymology 1" (or in the Usage Note, as it is now). (2) I think the new entry for bacterias should have a {{nonstandard}} tag. Can we settle these questions here, or should I rfv each of these? -- WikiPedant 05:26, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Consider it a proposal. I request that attention be paid to Google News hits as well: These are edited works. I also suggest that one's personal reaction to a regional difference is something that can work against the stated objectives of Wiktionary. I have an impression that non-standard tags are applied more generously to "Americanisms" than to expressions from other regions. Could that be the effect or the cause of our low share among US users? Is the reaction a sign that there would need to be a separate wikt for American English? I don't know about the needs of the other colonies. DCDuring TALK 12:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

As an American myself, I am horrified to discover that you seem to be right about this being an Americanism. Data points:

• [1] However, I think this may be partially an artifact of the fact that very few non-US archives are included in Google's archive search.
• On the other hand, there are at least occasional non-US native-speaker uses (or rather "useses"), like this one from the Guardian: [2]. However, they don't seem very numerous.
• The COCA corpus yields 6 hits for "bacterias," [3] as against 0 for the BNC (probably not statistically significant).

Bleh. What a travesty. But what's done is done; this appears to be a valid, intentional use that is largely localized in the US. Could we perhaps tag it (non-technical) or some such? -- Visviva 12:52, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree. —Ruakh_TALK 12:13, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I've sent e-mails to the NY Times asking about the usage. I will let you know what I find. I might to the same for Merriam-Webster. DCDuring TALK 01:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage (1999 edition) has this to say on page 35:

bacteria is plural. The singular is bacterium.

... so the NYT itself would consider these uses nonstandard? Or maybe their MOS isn't actually respected by the proofreaders. -- Visviva 02:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree there is just one etymology here. Also I'm fairly sure the current Etymology 1 is incorrect -- bacteria is the regular plural of bacterium (NL) from bakterion (grc), which is the neuter diminutive of bakteria (please forgive the sloppy romanization). The singular sense is derived from the Latin neuter plural, not directly from the Greek singular feminine. OTOH, if there are any uses of "bacteria" (or "bakteria"?) to actually mean "a (large) rod," that would merit a separate etymology. -- Visviva 02:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Whoops! [4] Looks like "bacteria" (plural "bacteriae") is a valid obsolete synonym for "bacterium." That would be a separate etymology IMO (from the Greek feminine singular, presumably via NL). Now, is this completely separate from the modern singular use, or not? -- Visviva 03:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider that a wholly separate etymology. Latin doesn't make as big a deal or the -um / -a difference in ending, since they'd be considered just different gender forms of the same word (with the complication that the -a form could also be a plural nominative of the -um form). A different inflectional ending does not mean there is an entirley separate etymology; there are just two results from the same Ancient Greek rooting via Latin. If you want to get as technical as your preceding comments suggest, then we should start adding separate etymologies to all plural forms, since the plural forms in English often don't derive from the same root form as the singular. And nearly each and every conjugated form of every French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, etc. verb can be traced back to a particular inflected form of a Latin verb. Does that mean that every one of those gets a separate and different etymology? --EncycloPetey 15:50, 4 November 2008 (UTC)