Binocular or binoculars?

[FLO]

Thank-you all 🙂 

[Stu]

I’m sitting here with my underpant on my head, wondering what the answer was after all that 😉🤪🤣

[JeremyS]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I’m sitting here with my underpant on my head, wondering what the answer was after all that 😉🤪🤣

Ah, it’s Commando Stu!

[saac]

On 08/04/2022 at 13:20, wulfrun said:

Binoculars (noun) must be plural, by definition, I'd think. Singular would be monocular. "Binocular" would be an adjective, e.g. binocular vision, having two forward-facing eyes.

EDIT: as per above post, "a pair of trousers", yet one can buy a trouser press. Implying a press for a trouser? (Yes, it's the press that's singular).

EDIT2: a visit to the Wikipedia page for "plurale tantum":

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralia_tantum

I need to buy a second press my denim trouser has two legs

Jim 

[Stu]

18 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Ah, it’s Commando Stu!

Only at the weekend Sir! 😉

[neil phillips]

On 10/04/2022 at 15:52, Stu said:

Rightly or wrongly, to me it’s always been a pair of binoculars, it just sounds correct to me. I would also say a pair of bins, or a pair or binos, not a pair of bin which would seem very odd to me.

Without wishing to take the thread off track, I also struggle with data in a similar way. I know that in scientific ‘speak’, datum is the singular and data the plural, but to me it always sounds wrong to say ‘the data are correct’, I always say ‘the data is correct’. My apologies to everyone offended by this deep character flaw of mine 😉

 

Some binoculars. The binoculars. My binoculars. Your binoculars ect. 

A pair of binoculars is two sets ( 4 lenses)  A pair of Monoculars  on the other hand. Is fast on its way to becoming some binoculars with a little tinkering  

The confusion arises from a pair of lenses in the binoculars. But the word binocular encompasses that fact by itself. With no addition needed 

Right I am off to clean my pair of binoculars. So how many am I cleaning again ? You can see the problem created here

Edited April 28, 2022 by neil phillips

[F15Rules]

On 08/04/2022 at 20:15, ollypenrice said:

'No, less. I regard you as a single lump of proles...'

😁lly

..but couldn't that equally be " I regard you all as a prole.."??

Dave(s)

[F15Rules]

On 16/04/2022 at 17:29, Voyager 3 said:

Honestly I've learnt more grammar in this thread than my entire English classes. 

Yay! Grate, innit, kno wot I mean??.!!! 

Dave

[F15Rules]

14 hours ago, Stu said:

I’m sitting here with my underpant on my head, wondering what the answer was after all that 😉🤪🤣

Agree Stu...I certainly can't get a handle on it/them!!🙃😇

Dave

[F15Rules]

Trying to be semi-serious for a moment..

I've always looked at this question as follows:

-A binocular or a pair of binoculars are the same thing, ie a single, complete optical instrument, just as a monocular is also a single, complete optical instrument.

So, if someone shows me a photo of, or an actual binocular, and refers to them as a binocular OR a pair of binoculars, I know exactly what they mean, whichever term they use for them.

So I've never seen a problem..

But what REALLY irritates me is when, in a movie or TV series, they show you a so called "binocular view" which is completely wrong, showing a "figure 8 on its side" kind of view rather than the accurate single round circle view, ie same as in a telescope, that is what you actually see!!🥴😠😝..

So there...😊

Dave

 

[Highburymark]

It’s also extended to binoviewer/binoviewers. The same rules apply I think. Noun is “a pair of binoviewers” and adjective “a binoviewer case”.    
Just guard against an apostrophe for a straight plural, as in: “I’ve just bought two pairs of binoviewer’s.”

[ollypenrice]

On 10/04/2022 at 16:52, Stu said:

Rightly or wrongly, to me it’s always been a pair of binoculars, it just sounds correct to me. I would also say a pair of bins, or a pair or binos, not a pair of bin which would seem very odd to me.

Without wishing to take the thread off track, I also struggle with data in a similar way. I know that in scientific ‘speak’, datum is the singular and data the plural, but to me it always sounds wrong to say ‘the data are correct’, I always say ‘the data is correct’. My apologies to everyone offended by this deep character flaw of mine 😉

 

I live in fear of forgetting to use data as a plural! I always have to remind myself that that's what it is. As a 'sort-of' scientist and an English teacher (de-frocked) I'd cop it from all sides if I got it wrong.

🤣lly

[ollypenrice]

5 hours ago, F15Rules said:

 

But what REALLY irritates me is when, in a movie or TV series, they show you a so called "binocular view" which is completely wrong, showing a "figure 8 on its side" kind of view rather than the accurate single round circle view, ie same as in a telescope, that is what you actually see!!🥴😠😝..

So there...😊

Dave

 

Very true! I never fail to point this out, giving it the full pedant, to anyone else watching. It's a curious convention. It would be interesting to see the reaction if a film director decided to do it properly.

Another oddity was the convention by which old style landlines in films always had cables long enough to allow the actors to roam their homes while chatting away.  Nobody ever had such transatlantic length phone cables, ever.

Olly

[Voyager 3]

7 hours ago, F15Rules said:

Yay! Grate, innit, kno wot I mean??.!!! 

Dave

Dono dav ,but yor woz r gret! 😄

 

PS : I do not want any weak hearted English graduates to see these posts! Probably would hang themselves lol. 

[F15Rules]

32 minutes ago, Voyager 3 said:

Dono dav ,but yor woz r gret! 😄

 

PS : I do not want any weak hearted English graduates to see these posts! Probably would hang themselves lol. 

...well, my eldest daughter got a 1st class degree in English Literature, and in her early post graduate days she did some work in which she had to read some past English degree dissertations..she was truly amazed and appalled by the poor standard of grammar and spelling etc of a good proportion of candidates! 🥴😱🤦‍♀️..

Bring back the "3 R's" to schools, I say!!

Dave

[StevieDvd]

Bernard Levin once told me the art is in 'communicating effectivley' (the name of the course he was giving as well).  So the best correct grammar may not help you with today's lingusitic tortures.🤨

 

[BinocularSky]

On 28/04/2022 at 16:51, ollypenrice said:

Very true! I never fail to point this out, giving it the full pedant, to anyone else watching.

+1

[ollypenrice]

On 28/04/2022 at 20:16, StevieDvd said:

Bernard Levin once told me the art is in 'communicating effectivley' (the name of the course he was giving as well).  So the best correct grammar may not help you with today's lingusitic tortures.🤨

 

So he was giving it like speak the same way they do but I was giving it like whom and no split infinitives, right?

😁lly

[StevieDvd]

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

So he was giving it like speak the same way they do but I was giving it like whom and no split infinitives, right?

😁lly

His example was of a note to the bin men failing due to the author showing off his status by the over use of very long words.

The other was the medium of the message, many of the class failed on picking holes in some verbal examples - I was dumb enough to spot them though.

One example was to make up a sentence using the words "xxxx across the lake" where xxxx was a word rhyming with nose but beginning with an 'r' instead of 'n' (obviously he spoke this hence my use of the xxxx). Everone but me was convinced it could only be the one word meaning/spelling.

 

 

 

 

 

[BinocularSky]

On 28/04/2022 at 16:43, ollypenrice said:

I live in fear of forgetting to use data as a plural!

As do I - had it drummed into me in my Data Analysis module at university. 

It's a hard life being a pedant: I also get "triggered" (I believe that's the term that's in mode nowadays) by the use of plural verbs with singular collective nouns, misplaced modifiers, incorrect use of reflexive pronouns, and superfluous use of "personally". The UK media are awful for these!
 

[LukeSkywatcher]

I just call them bins. I have a pair of Omegon 2.1x32 (or something), a pair Strathspey 10x50, Strathspey 20x90 and a pair of Lunt Sunoculars (8x32).

Edited April 30, 2022 by LukeSkywatcher

[JeremyS]

33 minutes ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

I just call them bins. I have a pair of Omegon 2.1x32 (or something), a pair Strathspey 10x50, Strathspey 20x90 and a pair of Lunt Sunoculars (8x32).

Shouldn’t that be bin?

[ollypenrice]

3 hours ago, BinocularSky said:

As do I - had it drummed into me in my Data Analysis module at university. 

It's a hard life being a pedant: I also get "triggered" (I believe that's the term that's in mode nowadays) by the use of plural verbs with singular collective nouns, misplaced modifiers, incorrect use of reflexive pronouns, and superfluous use of "personally". The UK media are awful for these!
 

Ah, singular collective nouns! Please distinguish between...

1) A lot of binoculars is to go under the hammer at Sothebys tomorrow.

2) A lot of pairs of binoculars is to go under the hammer at Sothebys tomorrow.

3) I've had more than enough of this and will take a hammer to the next binocular, pair of binoculars, quartet of binoculars, quartocular, sextupocular or any other glass object, be it at Sothebys or any other place within reach of my hammer...

Olly

Edited April 30, 2022 by ollypenrice

[ollypenrice]

4 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

His example was of a note to the bin men failing due to the author showing off his status by the over use of very long words.

The other was the medium of the message, many of the class failed on picking holes in some verbal examples - I was dumb enough to spot them though.

One example was to make up a sentence using the words "xxxx across the lake" where xxxx was a word rhyming with nose but beginning with an 'r' instead of 'n' (obviously he spoke this hence my use of the xxxx). Everone but me was convinced it could only be the one word meaning/spelling.

 

 

 

 

 

As topless Cleopatra's oarsmen rowed, I took my repose across the lake. (Can I say that on here? If not, she can be wearing a Barbour jacket if the mods insist...)

Olly

[Peter Drew]

I always say and write, a binocular.  (Aspiring pedant)   🙂