Talk:methamphetamine

There are 706 google books hits for "methamphetamines", is this really uncountable?

In the context of the chemical it is uncountable. If the definition were, for example; any one of a class of chemicals related to methamphetamine or a methamphetamine tablet etc. However I have never come across it this way before. An example of both a countable and uncountable chemical/drug name (though not illicit) is aspirin which is uncountable as a chemical and countable when we refer to tablets made of aspirin. We have to be careful of Google books hits because there are many incorrect usages of chemical terminology. If we have plenty of cites for methamphetamines we need to cite and make an indication why there is a plural.--Williamsayers79 19:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Where have any of you heard of anyone called ecstacy tablets methamphetamines? Iwould like to see some cites!--Williamsayers79 20:19, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

RFV

The following information has failed Wiktionary's verification process.

Failure to be verified means that insufficient eligible citations of this usage have been found, and the entry therefore does not meet Wiktionary inclusion criteria at the present time. We have archived here the disputed information, the verification discussion, and any documentation gathered so far, pending further evidence.
Do not re-add this information to the article without also submitting proof that it meets Wiktionary's criteria for inclusion.

---

methamphetamine

[sense of a pill containing the compound]

I have never heard of ecstacy tablest being refered to as methamphetamines. If this sense is going to stay please provide cites!--Williamsayers79 19:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Not one b.g.c. hit for "one methamphetamine" is using it as a countable noun; I also tried various small numbers ("two methamphetamines" and so on), and none pulled up any hits using it as a countable noun. Similarly with Google Scholar and Google Groups. That said, methamphetamines does exist as a plurale tantum, presumably from confusion between methamphetamine (which denotes a specific compound) and amphetamines (which denotes a class of compounds of which methamphetamine is a member). —Ruakh_TALK 21:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's what I think's going on with this sense. The word methamphetamines is used extremely commonly. But sense (1) of methamphetamine seems to be uncountable, like other similar chemical names. Maybe it would be worthwhile to add "always plural" or "almost always plural" to sense (2) of methamphetamine?  :-) Language Lover 17:04, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed. Sense removed. —Ruakh_TALK 20:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)