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I recently had an encounter with a staff member at a health care provider's office that made me wonder whether there are dialects in which "two pairs [of something]" can be interchangeable with "two [somethings]."
In this case, the person was an African-American man, probably less than 30.
I said that I needed "two pairs" and as the conversation progressed, I realized that he thought I just wanted two/one pair. I had to specify -- "I need two pairs, that's four: two for the left and two for the right." And then realization dawned on him.
This incident got me thinking. Has anyone encountered situations in which "two pairs" is interchangeable with "two"?
Well, those are of the special category of things that are spoken of as pairs in the singular. And there doesn't really seem to be any ambiguity in those cases.
Think of shoes and socks. I'm asking about situations in which:
"I need two pairs of shoes/socks" might be understood as meaning "I need two shoes/socks" (i.e., one pair).
But your question above was:
... made me wonder whether there are dialects in which "two pairs [of something]" can be interchangeable with "two [somethings].
...
Has anyone encountered situations in which "two pairs" is interchangeable with "two"?"
Pants, glasses, scissors, etc. certainly qualify.
As for any ambiguous cases, none come to mind.
I disagree with AnMa's second post. I cannot imagine anyone thinking that "two pairs of shoes" could ever mean two shoes. In no situation can I think of "two pairs" being one left and one right, as with this situation. Now, "two pairs of panties" could be two garments or four, and "two pairs of glasses" could be two items or four, and so on for other conjoined items.
IMHO, the more likely explanation is some sort of mental hiccup, where his brain heard "two" and "pair" and equated them. I don't know if there's a word for this. I bet dollars to doughnuts that if you had asked for three pairs, you would have received six items.
I have caught myself many times trying to say a word, stumbling over two equally good word choices, and spitting out a chimaera of the two (eg Big or Large, and I spit out Barge)--i wonder if it's a related phenomenon?
AnMa,
Glenn is a great resource on this list; if he has not heard of a dialect, it probably does not exist.
However, perhaps you can describe the occurrance a little more explicitly (i.e. using "[something]" may be leaving out something important). Details may be critical in answering your question. Please tell us where this conversation took place or where the young man might be from. Hiding these details for any reason (political correctness, words not used in mixed company, etc.) is discouraged in this forum.
HTH
Emmett
Essentially they were podiatric footgear that come in separate versions for the left and the right ankles. Shoes or socks is as pretty close as you could get and constitute equivalent substitutes. They are not singular items that can be spoken of as plural, like pants or scissors.
I know nothing about the young man except that he is a young-ish African-American who works in the suburbs of a large east coast conurbation. I haven't hidden any pertinent facts for political correctness, whatever that might mean.
The word nucleotide has that kind of ambiguity. A pair of nucleotides can be either one nucleotide segment or two, since the word nucleotide can be used to refer to the paired segment, or the individual paired strands that make up the nucleotide segment. So two pairs of nucleotides could be either two or four nucleotide segments.
I'll add yet another example, since astronomy is my hobby and I run into this often. We speak of a "pair of binoculars" when we mean a single optical device with which one can use both eyes simultaneously. Binoculars are essentially a pair of telescopes mounted parallel to each other, and spaced to accommodate the normal range of human eye separation.
But I have to say that, over the last decade or so, my astronomy colleagues seem to be dropping the "pair" and just referring to them as "binoculars." And that makes perfect sense to me. It's as superfluous to say "pair of binoculars" as it is to say "pair of eyes," when "eyes" does just fine.
Which makes it all the more curious that people often say "I'll keep my eye on it" when they'll obviously be using both.
Sorry AnMa, but my example is not really an ambiguous use of "pair" either. We have the term "monocular" to describe a single optical unit. And we also have "monocle" even though we don't call "glasses" "binocles," which is also a bit strange. And I'll second Emmett on this ... if Glenn can't come up with an ambiguous example, it likely doesn't exist.
I may have an ambiguous example.
A couple of years ago on the Usenet group alt.usage.english, someone noted that Americans refer to a compass to mean the tool used for drawing circles; the Brits preferred a pair of compasses. If someone used to the latter phrase asked for "two pairs of compasses", expecting two such tools, the person responding to the request might well hand over four of them if he/she had grown up with the other term.
Ron Draney said:
I may have an ambiguous example.
A couple of years ago on the Usenet group alt.usage.english, someone noted that Americans refer to a compass to mean the tool used for drawing circles; the Brits preferred a pair of compasses. If someone used to the latter phrase asked for "two pairs of compasses", expecting two such tools, the person responding to the request might well hand over four of them if he/she had grown up with the other term.
Brilliant. I think we have a winner. So, in answer to the original question "Are there dialects ..." the answer is "yes": British English and American English. How delightful. Bravo, Ron.
When I moved south of the Mason-Dixon line I found that it was pretty common to say it's "twenty mile to that town", or that a person is "about six foot tall". Those two and "pair" are about the only examples I can think of; I never hear of it being "twenty minute to the store" or "60 inch tall". I was going to add "dozen", but that's a count, not a measurement, and if we add it to these other examples we'd have to add "score", "hundred", "thousand", "myriad", "million" and so on. Not the same thing.
The count-plus-unit adjectives are interesting. When they are attributive, the units are never plural.
This ladder is 14 feet tall. It is a 14-foot ladder. It is a 14-foot-tall ladder.
This movie is 111 minutes long. It is a 111-minute movie. It is a 111-minute-long movie.
The trip is 20 miles. It is a 20-mile trip.
This scotch is 40 years old. It is a 40-year-old scotch.
The sack is 10 pounds. It is a 10-pound sack. (And we know what goes in it!)
While I don't do this, it is not too far afield to use the attributive form in predicative position:
*This ladder is 14-foot-tall.
*This movie is 111-minute-long.
*The trip is 20-mile.
*This scotch is 40-year-old.
*The sack is 10-pound. (One could argue for this if the sack is empty, but designed to hold ten pounds. Similar to a 4-ton pickup, designed to accomodate a 4-ton payload. In these cases predicative use could be identical to the attributive.)
Don't forget horsepower:
It is a 4-horsepower engine. *This engine is 4 horsepowers. (whoops!). This engine is four horsepower.
Now there is a perfectly good example just like the starred ones above!
I thought about that, Glenn, but didn't mention it because it's a different situation. And I'm with you, I would never hyphenate that second group; I'd write either "it's a 14-foot ladder" or "it's 14 feet tall". The 10-lb sack is more problematic, I grant you.
But what interests me is that OTHER than attributive use, I could say "this ladder is 14 foot tall" but never "this movie is 111 minute long"; "it's 20 mile from here to there" but never "this scotch is 20 year old".
Interesting about "horsepower", though. It feels different from "mile" and "foot", but maybe that's my imagination; maybe it's one to add to the list.
...A belated thought about your comment that "attributive" units never being plural—a twenty-foot drop, a five-hour drive and so on: I'd make that a general rule, but then what do we do with computer terms like "systems programmer" and "applications management"? Were these terms coined originally by nerds who didn't know the language and now it's too late to correct them? Or are they a different animal?
Computer terms seem to have a life of their own, and often follow no logical rules. But I'd say "nerds" are on average better with language than "non-nerds." Of course, that doesn't mean they can write good owners manuals or help files … that's a whole 'nuther skill.
Reminds me, though, of a recent trip to the local electronics store. I needed to replace the mouse for my desktop PC. I wanted to ask "What aisle are your mice in?" Just couldn't bring myself to use that plural. Didn't sound right to me, but probably is. So I just said "I need a new mouse. What aisle are they in?"
Just Googled "computer mice" and got 38 million hits. But "computer mouses" got 5 million hits. So mice it is, by a landslide.
Glenn said:
The word nucleotide has that kind of ambiguity. A pair of nucleotides can be either one nucleotide segment or two, since the word nucleotide can be used to refer to the paired segment, or the individual paired strands that make up the nucleotide segment. So two pairs of nucleotides could be either two or four nucleotide segments.
As a scientist I would disagree with this comment. A nucleotide is a single molecule--when it is paired with another nucleotide as in DNA, we would refer to that as a "basepair". In normal circumstances the nucleotide pair would be composed of two different molecules (AT, GC) as pairing with the same nucleotide is not normal. There is sometimes sloppiness as when people refer to the size of a single stranded molecule (RNA for example) in basepairs (bp) rather than nucleotides (nt), or vice versa--double stranded DNA molecules in nt rather than bp. This confusion can come about because nt and bp are used both for length and size (as in size on a gel which is related to length, but not necessarily equivalent). Okay, too much information.
Don't apologize too quickly for TMI, corlermutt; I'm interested by your statement that a nucleotide is a single molecule. Is there some flexibility in the definition of a molecule? Organic chemistry isn't my field so I speak under correction, but I would have said that in a sense the entire DNA strand is a molecule, too. Isn't the whole thing held together by valence bonds? And if so, doesn't that make the whole thing one big molecule?
(Not that we don't refer to NaCl as a "molecule", too, which may be carelessly convenient rather than strictly accurate.)
I anticipate a response along the following lines:
1) The word "molecule" does indeed have some flexibility in it. We speak loosely of a "molecule" of salt even though it's an ionic bond.
2) Actually the word "molecule" can refer to both valence and ionic bonds[optional 2a:], as well as to [list of other types of bonds I'd forgotten or never heard of].
1/2.i) So yes, in a sense DNA can be thought of as a molecule, too.
[or]
1/2.ii) But in organic chemistry we apply the term more strictly to those structures that [definition follows], and by that description DNA doesn't qualify but the individual nucleotides do.
3) I agree that "molecule", strictly speaking, applies only to a collection of atoms that share molecules (and no, I would never speak of a "molecule" of NaCl). But DNA isn't all valence bonds; the actual mechanical bonding is done between proteins [or between amino acids] by [definition follows], so DNA must be thought of as not one molecule but many.
Of course you may say something I never thought to anticipate.
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