Hives, Divers

[Gaye]

Could these two words be included in the Chi list?  I believe they are in the same category as shingles etc.

[Alan W]

I do believe you're right, Gaye!

Hives, the medical condition, is treated as either singular or plural, and there is no corresponding word hive. The word seems to be unrelated to beehives, and is labelled by the Oxford as "origin unknown".

Divers, meaning various, sundry, several, is not even a noun, and certainly unrelated to those who dive. It's normally labelled as literary and/or archaic, but that's never been a barrier in the past. (The word was used quite frequently by Shakespeare.) In case anyone's wondering, diverse is a later word, derived from this sense of divers. Divers doesn't seem to have such a strong sense of items being different from one another - it can simply mean "several", as in: "Myself and divers gentlemen beside / Were there surprised and taken prisoners." (King Henry VI, Part 1)

[bobbi]

Thanks Alan,

I was pretty surprised to have divers rejected. Use it all the time, and assumed it was a common word.
Thanks again 

[Gaye]

Thanks Alan.

[anonsi]

I tried divers today, remembering this topic... Looks like it never got added to the list.

[pat]

I didn't try divers today because I remembered what Alan had said in another topic:

"The way we handle multiple-meaning cases, like demos, has gone through various alterations in the history of Chihuahua. At one stage, I was moving towards the notion that any word that was not a plural (or third person verb form) should be allowed, regardless of other words spelled the same. As an example, I was planning to admit divers, in the, somewhat dated, sense of "several". Like demos, the word is not a plural - in fact it is an adjective. However, I changed my mind. I concluded that, since divers, in the sense of people who go underwater, is much more widely known, allowing divers would cause more confusion and irritation among players than it would eliminate."

Seems like there's still some confusion over this one.

[anonsi]

Dang! I wish I had remembered the topic you mentioned instead!

[TRex]

I also tried divers -- a good biblical word. So, it knocked down my percentage a bit, but I don't worry about the percentage.

[technomc]

Not a word i have ever used in that context.....might make it my word of the day tomorrow!!