People, I love ya but there is no such word as VINYLS. It's "VINYL", no 's' at end.

It's a discussion.

A textile store putting it up in its window doesn't legitimise the word.

I still don't agree there is such a word any more than I would place my faith in grocers' apostrophes.

 

As far as I can see, there's no such thing as pants. It's pant. You don't put on a pair of pants. You put on a pant. I guess if you're up in the mountains and it's cold, you might put on a pair of pants. If you go to the store to buy a pair of pants, you better be returning home with two pants. Not one. I'm under the impression that those who think they're putting on a pair of pants each day, also hallucinate that they're putting on a pair of sunglasses at some point as well. Go ahead... I dare you to find anyone wearing sunglasses stacked on sunglasses. Can't be done... slides off your nose.


3pant
noun
Definition of PANT
1
: an outer garment covering each leg separately and usually extending from the waist to the ankle

(sorry for the big text... well, not really.... blame it on the Merriam Webster quote)

 

I would take a scissor to that dictionary.

 

Of course, and no speaker would ever say "vinyls record" either, but that's not the plural usage being discussed.

Sure, just as we were taught that the plural of deer is deer (although plenty of people say deers)... but none of your examples apply to this case. Many parallel examples have been brought up in this thread, such as beer, and many other mass nouns. Once we acknowledge that the word "vinyl" is synonymous with "record" in some cases, it should follow that they can be pluralized in the same way. And there is ample evidence of it's usage over a long time (many photos in this thread, with record store signage, etc, along with examples in print of the word vinyls). So you can try to give an argument against the word vinyls, but you'd need to explain why it's different than the similar cases mentioned (beer, cheese, sugar, acid, etc). Your previous reply of simply "the plural of beer is beers", is not an argument, that's just a declaration which anyone could make.

Now I need to go put my new vinyls on the shelf....

 

The fact that there is not simply one type of vinyl or one purpose for it makes it a perfectly valid plural word. Again, the title of the thread is inaccurate.
And the simply fact is that if you call a record album a "vinyl" because of what it is comprised of, it only stands to reason more than one of them could very well imply plural, as in "vinyls".
If I have a pocket full of nickels, assuming they are made of primarily the element nickel, I could say "I have a pocket full of nickel" or "I have a pocket full of nickels" , both statements would be correct, considering that a nickel coin is 25% nickel and the coin is referred to by one of the elements it is made of.
Vinyl is correct for an album collection. So is vinyls.

 

Your use of smart-person words like "moot" and "colloquial" is negated by your incorrect spelling and punctuation.

 

Don't agree. Have never heard of the word vinyl being put in the plural -ever - until recently as a result of the resurgence of vinyl. It's just a fact that certain words do not have natural plurals by dint of adding -s to them in English -it simply sounds wrong to the ear.

That's not to deny that language evolves -of course it does, but quite often there's simply no need for it and this is one of those instances. It's horrible to listen to and comes quite simply fork a generation for whom it is new and who don't have the words for the format. For example they all have the same questions for me -how do you pause it, how do you know which song you're putting on, why are you turning it over?

Best of all, from my own son (when he got a free 7" with the latest Paramore LP) -what IS IT?

 

The mushroom example was given as an example of a noun being used adjectivally. You, I believe, said you had never heard the expression "vinyl record" which is surprising. That is the original expression, as opposed to shellac, later shortened to "(out now) on vinyl " etc.

I don't see how none of my examples apply here ; it's the very essence of my argument. None of us went around saying "vinyls" for LPs, albums and so on until recently when a new generation, confronted with something they weren't familiar with, made a plural of the one word they kept hearing pertaining to it -to distinguish it from "downloads' one presumes.

I don't get the example of the other words....yes, you can say beers, cheeses, sugars, peoples, musics, monies and indeed acids but there is no such word as vinyls. You may as well ask why we don't say foxen or childrens or childs or vixens. The English language is sometimes a bit difficult, tough even (doesn't rhyme with plough) but that's what makes it interesting.

Bottom line is, anyone can say vinyls if they want to. I can't stop them. I can only mildly protest, which is fun to do so in a thread such as this which affords me the opportunity. Brought up on singles, 45s and LPs, I myself will never say or endorse it.

 

Funny, I've just finished building my latest Kallax shelf on which to house my most recent vinyl purchases !

 

57 pages of trying too hard.

 

Er, "whose".

 

How do you pronounce "ghoti" in English according to George Bernard Shaw? See post #888 in this thread.

 

So, you want me tae go tae (Derry pronunciation) your own post? Sounds fishy, he thought, stroking his goatee.

 

I certainly did not.... of course I've heard (and used) that expression. I see the word vinyl in that phrase as a modifier - but does it matter? This thread is pedantic enough without dragging in other linguistic issues...
As for you not getting the examples I cited using other words, I don't know what else to say.... but if you read through the thread, all these arguments have been made before (surely better arguments than mine) and maybe other people have explained it better. Arguments from your perspective end the same way - people just declaring, "there is no such word as vinyls". And as I mentioned there is ample evidence of it's usage (again, peruse this thread).

 

There is ample evidence of stupidity in the world. By your logic do you therefore encourage people to be stupid?

 

"You should read through this thread. And I've never heard the term vinyl used as an adjective (as in, "vinyl records" where vinyl is describing a particular quality of the record) - it's used simply to state what the thing is made of. "

......that's why I thought you'd said it.

 

Huh?! That's like saying because I see ample evidence of evil in the world, I encourage people to be evil. You can't possibly mean what you just said.

There's no logic involved here... I was responding to a very specific claim, that the word vinyls isn't a word, has not been used until very recently... I'll just quote him: "Have never heard of the word vinyl being put in the plural -ever - until recently as a result of the resurgence of vinyl." And, "None of us went around saying "vinyls" for LPs, albums and so on until recently ...".

He may never have heard or seen the word used before, but that doesn't mean other people haven't been using the word for a long time, maybe he just missed it. I just pointed out that there is evidence of it's usage and you can find some of that in this (very long) thread.

 

I see what you mean.

 

I've never heard the 10 greatest operas, so I guess they don't exist.

Some people likely haven't heard the terms "gramophone record" or "phonograph record" either,
but let me assure you that "vinyl record" has been in use for at least 60 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramophone_record

 

LOL. Scroll up and re-read the posts following the one you quoted.... it should be obvious where your misunderstanding is.

 

That quote wasn't from me but from Superfuzz himself.

 

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/ling001/prescription.html

 

sorry, on my tiny iphone screen, i messed it up.

 

No problem.

 

On the point that the title is inaccurate, I agree--the word "vinyls" exists, as a means of referring to different formulations of vinyl. However, I disagree with your last statement. To me, vinyl is NOT correct for an album collection. Until the recent vinyl resurgence, the term "vinyl" was mainly used in the sense of "I prefer vinyl to CD" or "I'm gonna carve out some time to listen to some vinyl tonight." Now, you may be able to find random examples of people saying things like "I just bought a vinyl today" from back in the '70s or 80s, but I would counter that such examples are extraordinarily rare and would have sounded very, very bizarre at the time. "Vinyl" referred to the material records were made of--synecdochally, that material could refer to records, but not to an individual record--one listens to vinyl or to some vinyl, but never to "a vinyl," and therefore, never "vinyls." To use your cheese example, almost nobody would ask someone to go to the refrigerator to get "a cheese" unless there were several varieties (the equivalent of different vinyl formulations) present. Otherwise, they would ask for "some cheese" or "a slice of cheese." Likewise, "some vinyl" or "a vinyl record." Even more close to the music format context, referring to vinyl records as "vinyls" sounds to me exactly like someone referring to CDs as "digitals." People say things like "I prefer digital," or "I have a large digital collection," but they don't say they are listening to "a digital" (or "an analog," for that matter).

I agree with those who are saying that the term "vinyls" (in the context of records) is used mainly by those whose native language is not English and those who misunderstood the context when they first heard the term, possibly because they weren't around when the term was more common. Perhaps it will become widespread enough to become accepted in its own right, but it will always sound amusingly ungrammatical to those of us who remember the original usage.