Language question: Why has "vinyls" become a word?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by TMegginson, Aug 13, 2019.

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  1. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    Not that I'd have a problem with people doing that intentionally, but I'd bet those are rather examples of autocorrect. There are a number of those that are very common. Another is "defiantly" instead of "definitely." Those are typically an issue of people being sloppy typers on some devices in combination with often-"aggressive" autocorrect.

    I get a lot of them when I'm on my kindle where it will do things like change "not" to "nit"--when I manage to actually type "not" that is, or "onky" for "only" etc. I think it's because I mistyped those words so often that the mistype wound up in the dictionary, and my kindle will default to the mistype instead.
     
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  2. Fastnbulbous

    Fastnbulbous Doubleplus Ungood

    Location:
    Washington DC USA
    Next it will become a verb. "Dude do you even vinyl?" Then watch heads explode.
     
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  3. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    Just because people weren't saying "peases" often enough.
     
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  4. Lightworker

    Lightworker Forum Resident

    Location:
    Deep Texas
    I dunno...'vinyl' is the plural of 'vinyl' in a phonograph record context.
    "I hate meeses to pieces!" (except for good old Ed...)

    [​IMG]
     
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  5. Wally Swift

    Wally Swift Yo-Yoing where I will...

    Location:
    Brooklyn New York
    To be badass I stopped saying CD and insist on Compact Disc.
     
  6. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    [​IMG]
     
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  7. I think the issue is that the term "vinyl" (as it relates to records), really functions as a collective noun. After all, the colloquial use of the term denotes not "a record" (or multiple records), so much as it simply refers to the type of material used to make said record/records.

    It's NOT so much that the plural of vinyl is vinyl, so much as the term itself really can have no plural, since it's just the name of a type of material.

    Of course, the problem is that millennials think record = vinyl, therefore 1 record = 1 vinyl.

    Most of them, frankly, probably don't even think of the term as being shorthand for the name of a chemical composition: Polyvinyl Chloride. And most have never heard of vinyl siding, or vinyl flooring, or any number of other things that are typically made of vinyl.

    As such, it's just another name for record, and if you pluralize one, why wouldn't you pluralize the other?

    THAT SAID, "vinyls" sounds like nails on a chalkboard to my ears, and I'm sure I would cringe rather hard if I heard the term used out in the wild.
     
  8. gregorya

    gregorya I approve of this message

    In the pre-CD era, we referred to all vinyl configurations as records.

    12" were either LPs, EPs or albums, 7" were either 45s or singles.

    Dinosaurs also roamed the earth but that's a whole nuther thread... ;)
     
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  9. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    That would be one big advantage they have as a generation--if they've not had to deal with vinyl siding salesmen.
     
  10. Parachute Woman

    Parachute Woman Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Why on earth would you assume that millennials have never heard of vinyl siding or vinyl flooring?

    Millennials "think" that record = vinyl because that is how the industry itself has begun to refer to them.

    This post just strikes me as 'millennials = stupid.' This referring to over 80 million people in the U.S. alone.
     
  11. JoeRockhead

    JoeRockhead Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    it has become a word because the world is a stupid place
     
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  12. There you go: neologism... This nominalization of the word "millennial" is not in my old Webster's from 1981.
     
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  13. Sear

    Sear Dad rocker

    Location:
    Tarragona (Spain)
    First world problem
     
  14. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Missed opportunity to make that movie truly horrifying!
     
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  15. TMegginson

    TMegginson Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ottawa
    A 20-year-old Copywriter on my team explained to me that "stupid thick" is a compliment now. She's a post-millennial, like my teenage son.
     
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  16. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    Exactly. In places like Somalia, folks couldn't care less if you call it vinyl or vinyls. They have to deal with real problems like a shortage of Robert Ludwig Zeppelin II vinyl(s).
     
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  17. aphexj

    aphexj Sound mind & body

    Let me stop you right there
     
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  18. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    "Stupid" is roughly equivalent to "wicked" a la Boston usage there, isn't it?

    I'm not sure what "thick" would stem from . . . my first thought was using "thick" as a positive body-type attribute. But that might not be it.
     
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  19. Hammerpeg

    Hammerpeg Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manitoba, Canada
    Sadly, that seems to be the consensus.

    But I’ll never not cringe at it. People who use the pluralized V-word for records might as well call their keys metals and their shirts cottons.
     
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  20. aphexj

    aphexj Sound mind & body

    Wow sometimes I hear when people say 'bad' they actually mean 'good'! What a novel and unprecedented generation this is
     
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  21. TMegginson

    TMegginson Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ottawa
    It is. And she tells me that "she's stupid thick" reads as "she's so shapely (on the bottom end) it's just stupid."
     
  22. TMegginson

    TMegginson Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ottawa
    "linens
    plural noun US/ˈlɪn·ənz/
    cloth items for the home, such as sheets and tablecloths, made from linen or a similar material like cotton"

    (Cambridge Dictionary)

    There are many more.
     
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  23. TMegginson

    TMegginson Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Ottawa
    Especially when they use 1980s slang. ;)
     
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  24. aphexj

    aphexj Sound mind & body

    When things were totally fine, and there was no Millennial language abuse
     
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  25. intv7

    intv7 Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston, MA, USA
    It's "our own" fault -- I won't speak for the collective, as I know not everyone does it -- but those of us who used the term "on vinyl" over the years are partially to blame for all of this. Seed_drill referred to the usage of "vinyls" upthread as "linguistic blowback", and that's exactly what it is. It's a direct result of the word "vinyl" being thrown around among those who knew how to use it. Now, it's been appropriated by those who do not.
     
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