Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (plurals)

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'Measurements involving two or more units (such as pounds per square inch or miles per hour) should usually have the first word in the plural'

SUPPORT

Clear consensus supporting the new guidelines, specifically version 2.1. Some editors thought that rates that do not involve real units should be plural, (e.g.: instructions per sec.) reflecting their real usage when spoken by native speakers (like myself). That idea received general support and was later included in the new guideline 2.1. Mgasparin (talk) 00:47, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Really? This rule has no basis in logic, basic English grammar or widespread standards practice, and is certainly not widely adopted in article space. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:33, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See related discussion started at Pounds per square inch, and now brought here. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 14:35, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Examples of compliant and non-compliant articles

Example of articles compliant with this rule

and

Example of articles not compliant with this rule

Quotients

Products

etc etc etc

Similar cases

These six articles describe units of pressure formed by multiplying a unit of length by a substance's density and acceleration due to gravity. Each unit is known by many different names and we have redirects of several, not yet including the "foot head" (twelve inches of water). There are several different inconsistencies in our article naming, one of which can't be fixed without breaching WP:ENGVAR.

Discussion

It seems to me that having any formulation of "foo per bar" implies that "foo" will be a multiple. For example, inch per second only makes sense as a title if we are talking about a relationship where something is moving exactly one inch per second. bd2412 T 13:03, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
so the unit "metre" is only useful for an object that has a length of precisely one metre? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 13:31, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Referring to a "metre per second" is only useful if the movement is precisely one metre per second. Does the phrase "how many metre per second does it go" sound sensible? bd2412 T 14:10, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Does the question "how many metre tall are you?" sound sensible? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 14:30, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I added some entries to the lists above, consolidating from the discussion at Talk:Pounds per square inch. Feel free to revert if you like. I have not yet heard any arguments that make sense for retaining the plural in cases such as "miles per hour" and "pounds per square inch". Rracecarr (talk) 14:46, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. With units of measurement, we see the plural more often than the singular because our measurements rarely come out as one foo. That doesn't mean the unit is called "foos". The familarity of measurements in miles per gallon and pounds per square inch seems to have misled some editors into conceiving of this rule, an error which hasn't occurred when naming articles about the more technical and less familiar units. 79.73.240.200 (talk) 22:33, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that the guideline under discussion here was added in reaction to the move decisions for these very two articles (PSI and MPH); here's the diff: [1] Rracecarr (talk) 15:10, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The singular, such as mile per hour, seems to me to refer to the derived unit, while the plural, miles per hour, is about the measurement. We seldom talk about units, but we often discuss measurements, so the plural is far more common and sounds more natural. A quick look at the articles shows that they are primarily about the units so the singular seems like where we should have our article titles. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 23:52, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Right, the quoted text in the section heading looked fine to me; I couldn't see what the problem was — until I noticed that we were talking about article titles, and specifically where the article is about the unit itself.
For that case, I agree, the singular is better. Most of the time when we're talking about anything other than the unit qua unit, though, the plural is going to be better. I would suggest that any replacement guideline should be clear about that; we don't want people writing things like the top speed of the Bugatti is 250 mile per hour just because they misunderstood the scope of this guideline. --Trovatore (talk) 07:10, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The unit itself should always be singular, i.e. the metre - units are actually defined that way. However, "Miles per hour" or "pounds per square inch" are NOT units, they are equations indicating how much one unit varies against a fixed unit. We need to know which is the fixed unit to make sense of it. The fixed unity is always unity (singular) the variable unit is a multiple (plural). If we make both units in the equation unity that removes vital information about how the equation is constructed. Theoretically, "mile per hour" could mean the time it takes to go one mile, only common usage says otherwise. We could have a convention that we all understand that the first unit is the variable and the second is unity, which is almost the case but it's one helluva lot simpler to just write "miles per hour", which happens to coincide with the common usage. If there WAS such a thing as a unit called "mile per hour" I would endorse the singular, but there isn't, and what would that unit mean anyway? E x nihil ^(talk) 22:52, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's not true. See dimensional analysis. When you multiply or divide a unit by a unit, you get another unit. The mile per hour is indeed a unit of speed, and I think it's clear what it means. --Trovatore (talk) 23:00, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The mile per hour, pound-force per square inch and the rest are derived units, just like the watt, volt, ohm, newton, pascal and many more. This is particularly clearly documented for the SI system in our own articles; there are just seven SI base units and a vast number of SI derived units. United States customary units have a similar structure. 79.73.240.200 (talk) 17:07, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how to formulate the exception under discussion below, but I do agree that we should strive for consistency and stick with the singular for most such articles. V2Blast (talk) 10:36, 17 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that "foos per bar" is a mandatory way, unless the value is one or in fraction. For example, 30 miles per hour, but 1⁄4 mile per hour. --Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 05:05, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed new guideline

Here is a proposed starting point for a new policy on naming unit articles. Not sure about the exception, but it seems on initial googling that ACFM and SCFM are nearly always defined as "feet".

Articles about measurement units, including compound units, should generally be singular (so "Foot per second" rather than "Feet per second"). ~~The exception is if reliable sources consistently use the plural form in definitions (so "Actual cubic feet per minute" rather than "Actual cubic foot per minute".~~

Rracecarr (talk) 15:07, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed guideline version 2.1:

Articles about measurement units, including compound units, should generally be singular (so "Foot per second" rather than "Feet per second"). For measurement units formed by combining an object or event with a unit ("Lines per inch" or "Flashes per minute"), the plural form may be acceptable if overwhelmingly favored in definitions of the unit by reliable sources.

Discussion of proposed new guideline

I don't see a need for the exception because the term ACFM is not a unit, but an abbreviation used to indicate that the unit (cubic foot per minute) is being used to convey a particular quantity. In the same MAMSL is not a unit, but an abbreviation used to indicate that the unit (metre) is used to convey the height above mean sea level. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, agreed: if this discussion is limited to names of articles about units, then it may not be strictly relevant to ACFM and SCFM. Where does that leave subjects where one of the "units" is not really a unit (such as "Instructions per second" and "Lines per inch")? Rracecarr (talk) 17:34, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would keep the exception. You can certainly argue that "actual cubic feet per minute" is not a unit in the strictest sense, but it could be confused for one. There could be other such cases we haven't thought of. --Trovatore (talk) 17:42, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

By all means provide separate advice for abbreviations. I just don't think it's wise to mix the abbreviations (like ACFM or TIPS) with the corresponding units (cubic foot per minute or instruction per second). There should be separate advice for each. A possible solution for 'ACFM' is to merge it with 'cubic foot per minute'. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 05:08, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In some sense ACFM and SCFM are units. They're not ones you can express in SI, because it depends on pressure and temperature. But you can do dimensional analysis on them and units conversions, with pressure and temperature specified. It's certainly true that they might plausibly be merged into the CFM article, but that's a separate issue. What if they aren't merged? I think "feet" is correct, assuming the claim about the sources is true (also it sounds better in my ear), and it's not necessarily obvious that this guideline would not apply. --Trovatore (talk) 06:40, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that ACFM is an abbreviation for "Actual cubic feet per minute" (plural). I suspect the "actual" refers neither to the cubic foot no to the minute but to the rate of gas flow, and that's my point. A simpler example is MAMSL (simpler for me at least), which is an abbreviation for "metres above sea level" (again, plural). Here the "above mean sea level" refers not to the metre but to the height. The abbreviation includes information about the physical quantity (height) as well as the unit (metre) and that's why it needs to be treated differently. I see no reason why this distinction should not be made explicit on this page, but the advice on pure units should be simple and unambiguous: Always singular. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 06:47, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, ACFM is not parallel with MAMSL. That's a false analogy. ACFM is a unit; MAMSL is not. MAMSL is like measurements in Celsius or Fahrenheit, with a displaced zero point. --Trovatore (talk) 17:03, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Trovatore What ACFM and MAMSL have in common (apart from both being abbreviations) is that neither are pure units, in the sense that both imply a physical quantity in addition to the unit. In one case that physical quantity is a volume flow rate; in the other a distance. Neither property is implied by the units cubic foot per minute and metre alone. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:49, 17 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would say a unit is anything that measures something and transforms like a unit, namely linearly. For example, the dollar is a unit, and the euro is a unit, and there's a conversion factor between them, though it changes with time. But "degrees Celsius" or "degrees Fahrenheit" are not units, because the transformation between them is affine rather than strictly linear (though the degree C/F is a unit when applied to differences in temperature).

So ACFM and SCFM transform by a constant factor, though that factor changes depending on conditions. They're units. But MAMSL has a constant term in it, so it's not a unit. --Trovatore (talk) 18:34, 19 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The suggestion that the degree Celsius is not a unit is novel, radical and utterly at odds with the BIPM's authoritative and comprehensive description of the SI derived units.^[1] Do you have a source for that suggestion or for the general principle that units must be referenced to absolute zero? 79.73.240.200 (talk) 23:04, 19 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ International Bureau of Weights and Measures (2006), The International System of Units (SI) (PDF) (8th ed.), ISBN 92-822-2213-6, archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-06-04, retrieved 2021-12-16

The "degree Celsius", which measures temperature differences and is identical to the kelvin, is a unit. But 20 degrees Celsius is not 20 of any unit. --Trovatore (talk) 00:09, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The actual cubic foot per minute (ACFM) is a unit of volume flow; it actually is a cubic foot per minute. The standard cubic foot per minute (SCFM) is a unit of mass flow; the standard cubic foot is that mass of gas that would occuby a cubic foot at standard temperature and pressure. It's a common unit of measurement for compressed air, as is the standard cubic foot per hour (SCFH). Related metric units are sometimes "standard" e.g. standard litres per min (Sl/min) or standard cubic metres per hour (Sm³/h) but "normal" (Nl/min, Nm³/h) is used too. They're not part of SI and the definition of "standard" or "normal" conditions - and thus the mass of air or gas - varies (see ISO 13443 for a table of reference conditions for natural gas in different countries), but the customary/imperial and metric units are very common within their industries. They may be a little odd in their variation, but they're no different from other units as to when they're single and when they're plural. There's no reason to make an exception for them. 79.73.240.200 (talk) 09:58, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be an exception, assuming that the claim about the sources is correct. Also it sounds much better. --Trovatore (talk) 17:03, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What claim about the sources is that? And can you say how or why it "sounds much better" to you? Does "actual cubic feet per minute (ACFM) is a unit of volumetric flow" sound good? 79.73.240.200 (talk) 19:44, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While I have argued elsewhere against blind application of WP:SINGULAR, I don't see a reason why not here, so support the proposal in principle: one mile per hour (as well as others) is a legitimate derived unit, and the singular form lends itself naturally to the definition such as A mile per hour is an imperial and United States customary unit of speed... (and I would argue that the current version is grammatically wrong with Miles per hour [...] is a[n] unit... ).
However, I do see a caveat with semi-informal measurements in form of item per unit, e.g. count per minute or dot per inch sound just... wrong. I'm not sure I can formulate it, but I'd rather leave those as an exception. No such user (talk) 11:56, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 11#RfC: Should titles of article on units of the form "X per Y" be singular or plural? back in 2007/2008 – same arguments were espoused as here, but the discussion seems to have got stale, and no formal closure has been made. No such user (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The exception in v2.0 is so broad that it allows for endless arguments on each occasion. At the very least, it needs to state that reliable sources overwhelmingly use the plural form in defining the unit rather than in defining an abbreviation or in using the unit. Exceptions should not be made for straightforward derived units formed from other units, whether SI derived units or others formed in the same manner. If any exception is to be made, it should only be for those formed by combining an object or event with a unit. 79.73.240.200 (talk) 19:44, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still not convinced the exceptions are needed, broadly in line with anon. If there must be exceptions I liked the intermediate version better - the one that did not mention sources. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 20:01, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I changed it, but did not get rid of sources. I am trying to avoid the impression that all units of the form Event/object per unit should be plural--they may be plural, if supported. I don't have an example off hand of such a unit that should clearly not be plural, but don't think the plural form should be automatic. Rracecarr (talk) 21:05, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is an improvement. I still prefer to avoid mention of sources though, as this will be used as an argument to support use of the plural by those who miss the point about the distinction between definition and use. Any exceptions are best covered by WP:IAR Dondervogel 2 (talk) 17:31, 15 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I sympathise, but v2.1's compromise looks more likely to stick than an absolute version. It's better than a reversal a few months down the line by editors annoyed by "dot per inch", thus jeopardising proper naming of SI derived units and their US customary, imperial and generic metric cousins. Support. 79.73.240.200 (talk) 14:54, 18 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty quiet around here. There has been little opposition to the proposed new guideline, and some support. I'll give it another couple of days, and if there is no objection, I'll make the change. Rracecarr (talk) 15:08, 26 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Changed in mainspace. Will wait for some days before requesting any moves. Rracecarr (talk) 18:10, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support the revised version of the rule (and agree that arguments about whether something "really" is a unit, strictly speaking, aren't necessary; the point is for the usage to be consistent in our article titles. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 19:06, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – I strongly feel that the titles should use the plural. The plural is often used in English to speak of something generally, whereas the singular (of a countable noun) is more often used to speak of a particular thing, and it means one particular thing, so is not speaking about it generally. The phrase "Mile per hour" sounds awkward and is generally not used by native speakers unless speaking about a particular speed, i.e., one mile per hour/a mile per hour. Titles should be written in a way that sounds natural for most speakers of the language. Also, if you change the titles that are now plural to singular, someone will have to go through the articles and change most instances of plural to the singular. The first sentence after the bulleted list in the section Miles per hour#Usage is the following:

Miles per hour is the unit also used in the Canadian rail system,[22] which uses km/h on roads.

You would have to change this to

Mile per hour is the unit also used in the Canadian rail system, which uses km/h on roads.

It's simply not colloquial English. – Corinne (talk) 21:10, 15 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support - although this discussion seems a bit stale, I just noticed a link to it as "ongoing". I agree there is no reason to make an exception for these units (or titles more general). The unit itself is by definition singular, so that should be the title of the article.−Woodstone (talk) 16:36, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

~~Strong~~ support the "foos per bar" guideline, oppose the "foo per bar" guideline. --Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 11:43, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of application of BRD

Reverted as it is not good etiquette to make a change when the topic is still under discussion and this result is by no means indicated. Let it settle. E x nihil ^(talk) 07:27, 18 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of my edit was partly to start a discussion (in this I was successful) and partly to remove a ridiculous guideline that (fortunately!) is only rarely followed. Would you like to explain in what sense your revert improves the article? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 08:03, 18 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pre-empted the discussion already underway, which didn't look like it was heading towards that conclusion anyway. E x nihil ^(talk) 22:27, 19 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My question was in what way the article is improved by re-inserting the guideline under discussion. You have not answered that question so let me phrase it in a different way: Do you think we should we move metre per second and kilogram per cubic metre to metres per second and kilograms per cubic metre? And if not, why not? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 08:54, 21 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Dondervogel 2, it's taken two years to answer your question. Yes, I think we should indeed move metre per second and kilogram per cubic metre to metres per second and kilograms per cubic metre and the same for all X per Y compund units. The reason being is that all such units are rates with a variable rate X set against a unitary Y. So metres per second would be an entirely different unit to seconds per metre , both of which might be useful measures. One unit must be fixed at 1, the other must be in multiples or we don't have a useful unit. And X per Y is quite different from Y per X. One unit MUST = 1, other unit MUST = +/- 1, best expressed as a plural. E x nihil ^(talk) : Ex nihil (talk) 12:31, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

When and how this compendium of discussion will be closed? --Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 07:40, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Talk notice template

You can place {{Unit plural discussion}} at the top of affected articles to inform people of this discussion. Maybe get a bot to do this quickly? —Guan aco 09:21, 18 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Snicker Inaccuracy

It says "Snicker redirects to Snickers, which is about the chocolate bar." Snicker now redirects to laughter. What's the best way to change this in the article? Duckden (talk) 12:48, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've edited the article to be accurate Duckden (talk) 16:45, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Readers and editors used to

I think as an additional part of the 2nd bullet point we should also note that readers and editors are likely to assume that a term like Parachutes will either lead to the singular titled article or a DAB page (as people noted with the incoming links to the Parachutes (album) redirect) as was noted here. Although the plural form doesn't appear in the article it does appear that that is a count noun (I definitely wouldn't support that move today) and even though I'm near to the hamlet a search for Armigers doesn't return any results for the hamlet apart from an infobox after the heraldry for the lake. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:32, 24 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've added it (also to the 1st point to) since no one has objected that provides arguments on both sides that both readers and editors being used to articles being at the singular (and thus usually searching/linking with the plural) and that readers and editors are used to plural to singular redirects (and thus would expect this). Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:44, 16 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can we clarify when plurals are appropriate?

The recent RM close at Talk:RGB_color_spaces#Requested_move_20_October_2021 strikes me as a bit absurd. Yes the article covers multiple RGB color spaces, but so does Standard illuminant cover multiple standard illuminants (as I pointed out at the RM discussion, another color-related title), and at least thousands of others such singular titles are about multiple of the named things. This discussion was very thinly attended, with little support and even less opposition, so isn't going to be an important precedent, but seems like an outlier for which some wording correction in the guidelines might help. Anyone up for helping figure out a good rephrasing to replace "Articles on groups or classes of specific things"? This article is not really about the group or class, but about the specific things, unlike the examples given, but that didn't come through very clearly in the discussion. Or clarify that "Articles that actually distinguish among multiple distinct instances of related items can be sensibly given a plural title when the alternative would be to create an inappropriately large number of short articles, one on each instance" doesn't really apply when the that's not the alternative (there are already some articles on particular RGB color spaces, but nobody is proposing replacing the general article with separate article on all known variants, since on article on the generic one is really what's most useful). Dicklyon (talk) 07:18, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interpretation of the exception for articles on groups of entities

Some time ago the article RGB color space was renamed RGB color spaces, with the argument that the topic is not a specific entity such as "the" RGB color space, but the group of all color spaces that use the RGB color model. The discussion is here. Is this interpretation of the exception correct? It would seem to imply that the article Color space should be renamed Color spaces, since that article is not about a specific entity whose name is "color space", but about the group of all entities known as "color spaces". --Lambiam 05:14, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we can formulate a clearcut, bright-line rule when a plural title is appropriate. It's more of a "know it when I see it" thing, with a lot of gray area, and subject of a case-by-case editorial consensus.
Now, the RGB color spaces debate was long and thorough, and most editors agreed that the singular title implies that "RGB color space" is a single, well-defined thing rather than a broad concept (or a class) of (infinitely?) many specific spaces. I don't think that it "implies" much about Color space. Here, the qualifier "RGB" seems to imply that a "RGB color space" is a specific thing (and it's not); on the other hand "Color space" does not imply such a thing. Personally, I have problem clearly articulating the difference, let alone formulate it as a coherent guidance.
Compare, for example, the RM at Talk:Hepatic veins (there are three such specific veins) -- it does not imply anything about the title Vein, which describes a conceptual thing rather than a closed set. But the difference between a "conceptual thing" and a "closed set" is not always clearcut. No such user (talk) 11:15, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The RGB color spaces result was a weird outlier, and should not have happened. It goes against thousands of precedents, for unclear reasons. I think we've all known that WP:SINGULAR doesn't sit perfectly well with everyone, so perhaps we should expect a handful of "rebellions" from time to time, but they shouldn't stand indefinitely, since they just confuse the issue further. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:57, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

word, words, or word(s)?

This guideline does clarify when plurals of the form "word(s)" should be used.

An article can use a word's singular or plural form or both forms, hence the need for dual form "word(s)".

For example, most video game articles often use the singular form "player" to refer all players, even though the games may be multiplayer, online or offline. — CrafterNova ^{[ TALK ] [ CONT ]} 11:36, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] International Bureau of Weights and Measures (2006), The International System of Units (SI) (PDF) (8th ed.), ISBN 92-822-2213-6, archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-06-04, retrieved 2021-12-16

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