Author Topic: Word suggestion: tidings  (Read 944 times)

Morbius

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Word suggestion: tidings
« on: March 23, 2018, 07:24:33 PM »
I tried tidings (meaning news) in yesterday's 10 letter puzzle but it wasn't accepted.  To my mind, it's one of those words that looks like a plural but isn't.  After all, there is no such thing as a 'tiding'.  Worth considering for inclusion, perhaps even as a common word since most people will know what it means.

mkenuk

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Re: Word suggestion: tidings
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2018, 11:15:16 PM »
Seconded. It's a plural noun, like 'news' itself, and has no singular.

However, I seem to remember a few months ago Alan declaring a moratorium on decisions about words ending with 's'.


rogue_mother

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Re: Word suggestion: tidings
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2018, 11:38:19 PM »
One big difference between tidings and news is that tidings is not used in the singular, whereas news is.
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mkenuk

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Re: Word suggestion: tidings
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2018, 03:36:41 AM »
You are quite right, of course, RM.

Grammatically. news and tidings are not the same.

News is an uncountable noun which, like all uncountable nouns, has a singular verb.

The news was very bad.

Tidings is a countable plural noun which has no singular. It has a plural verb.

The tidings were very bad

Many such plural nouns are allowed as common words in Chi, however - odds, banns, goods , scissors are a few examples that come to mind.


birdy

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Re: Word suggestion: tidings
« Reply #4 on: March 24, 2018, 04:25:13 AM »
And of course there are other words where adding the "s" to a word can not only form a plural, but also a different word, e.g. the infamous and much-discussed "pants".