The singular biceps
I'm back!
And check out this correction from the Guardian Unlimited, right up our alley:
Jonny Wilkinson (Gregan's Wallabies plot new England fall, page 27, November 23) is recovering from a biceps injury, not a bicep injury. The singular of biceps is biceps. The plural of biceps is biceps.Via Regrets the Error.
Biceps definition. (It does list "bicepses" as an alternate plural.)
Instances of the wrong "bicep" in Google News. That's 280 errors right now, in some of the nation's biggest papers.
posted by Nicole @ 10:37 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
While talking about body parts, remember that it is patellar tendon, not patella tendon.
Welcome back.
You were missed.
Hope all is well.
Short sentences good.
The Macquarie dictionary makes the following note Usage: The form biceps is occasionally interpreted as a plural, leading to the creation of a variant bicep. A similar process has led to the creation of the now-standard forms of words such as cherry and pea.
...............I'd argue there was a euphonic argument for accepting bicep as an adjectival usage. It will prevail in the end methinks.
Boy, if we published corrections for all usage errors ...
There is a good chance "bicep" will prevail in the end, I agree. But we're not there yet. How long do these things take?
I copyedit advertising at a sports supplement company, and my coworkers are constantly trying to get away with bicep as the singular form on the grounds that "that's how bodybuilders talk." Of course, that's their excuse for constantly trying to get away with all sorts of semiliterate pidgin English.
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