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The plural of "athlete's foot" is...

by tye (Sage)
on May 02, 2003 at 15:22 UTC ( [id://255029]=poll: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Vote on this poll

athlete's foots
[bar] 22/3%
athlete's feets
[bar] 13/2%
athlete's foot
[bar] 145/18%
athlete's feet
[bar] 244/31%
athletes' foots
[bar] 6/1%
athletes' feets
[bar] 8/1%
athletes' foot
[bar] 76/10%
athletes' feet
[bar] 106/13%
fungi
[bar] 122/15%
dermatophytes
[bar] 57/7%
799 total votes
Replies are listed 'Best First'.
(jeffa) Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by jeffa (Bishop) on May 02, 2003 at 15:31 UTC
    none of the above ... "athlete's Foo" ;)

    jeffa

    L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
    -R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
    B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
    H---H---H---H---H---H---
    (the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)
    
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by Mr_Person (Hermit) on May 02, 2003 at 17:14 UTC
    I think it depends on what you mean by the plural. Is it more than one foot? In that case it would be athlete's feet. Or do you mean more than one athlete with an affected foot? That would be athletes' foot. Or even multiple athletes with multiple affected feet, which would be athletes' feet.

      Good point. However, the term "athlete's foot" is normally assumed to refer to a disease, not to a foot aflicted by it (IMHO). So the plural would likely be used to refer to more than one type of that disease (like how you say "one fish" and "two fish" but to talk about lots of types of coral fish you say "coral fishes").

                      - tye
        more than one type i would guess would be something like: "he had various different athlete's foot infections" where "athlete's foot" would be an adjective describing the type of infection(s).

        As for more than one foot being infected i still think it would be "athlete's foot", (e.g. "he has athlete's foot on both his feet")

        More than one athlete with the infection would still be "athtlete's foot", (e.g., "they all have athletes foot")

        multiple athletes? I would think it would be the same thing, (e.g., "they all have athlete's foot on both their feet", or "all of their feet have athlete's foot infections")

        for multiple different infections on multiple althletes on both their feet, i would guess "they all have various strains of athlete's foot infections one or more of their feet".

        Then again i am not an english teacher (so i could be wrong), but like BronzeWing says here i cannot think of a sentence where you would use anything but "athlete's foot" or "athlete's foot infections". (yeah i spent to much of my day already thinking about this)

        -enlil

      Or do you mean more than one athlete with an affected foot? That would be athletes' foot.

      Actually, that would probably be "athletes' feet" unless there was only a single infected foot among them... but in that case, it would simply be "athlete's foot" because you couldn't rightly say that the infected foot belonged to more than one athlete...

      Of course, the answer is "athlete's foot" anyway. :-)

      -sauoq
      "My two cents aren't worth a dime.";
      
The pessimist looks at athletes foot as a disease
by jaldhar (Vicar) on May 02, 2003 at 15:57 UTC

    The optimist looks at it as his own personal bonsai garden.

    --
    જલધર

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by gri6507 (Deacon) on May 02, 2003 at 15:34 UTC
    If you are so unlucky that you have Athlete's Foot desease/infection/lack of higene on both feet, I think the question of what to call it will be the last thing on your mind :-)
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by LAI (Hermit) on May 02, 2003 at 18:45 UTC
    print $user->{'pedant'} ? << 'END_RANT'

    There is no plural to "athlete's foot". It is a massive noun, like "butter" or "foo".

    END_RANT : << 'END_LEVITY';

    Sure, the plural of butter is "butters" as in, "there are only two butters in this basket, but five breads." So, the plural of "athlete's foot" is "athletes' foots".

    And no plural for "foo"? haven't you heard of foosball?

    END_LEVITY

    Hell, I'm not even sure if mixing here documents into trinary tests is legal, but whatever.

    LAI

    __END__
      Yes it is. You can use here documents anywhere a string is legal, in fact, you can even chain them:
      print $cond ? << 'HERE' : << 'DOC'; foo bar HERE baz quux DOC
      Although that gets unreadable real quick like.

      Makeshifts last the longest.

      Yes, this is what I was thinking too.
      Since its a mass noun (massive noun?), it would need a quantifier word such as "cases" or "problems" to refer to multiple instances. So you would say "There are three cases of athlete's foot".

      However, you can also say "There are several itchy athlete's foots available". I think there's some kind of rule in English where you can just add an "s" or "es" to any noun to make it plural.

        However, you can also say "There are several itchy athlete's foots available". I think there's some kind of rule in English where you can just add an "s" or "es" to any noun to make it plural.

        Maybe you meant "There are several itchy athlete's feet available."
        :-)

        No Peace Without War!
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by Popcorn Dave (Abbot) on May 02, 2003 at 20:30 UTC
    Itchy and scratchy? ;)

    There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling now.

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by Anonymous Monk on May 03, 2003 at 21:34 UTC
    According to the linguist steven pinker, the plural of athlete's foot would be "athelete's foot." That's because athlete's foot is just a disease that can be found anywhere (but typically on feet). I knew a kid at my summer camp who had athlete's foot on his hands, under his pits, and between his toes. Then he got it in his throat. But he still had athlete's foot. Boy was he a sick kid.
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by BronzeWing (Monk) on May 02, 2003 at 17:22 UTC
    /me refuses to vote on this poll until someone shows him a sentence where you'd actually need to know that. =p
      "Tinactin cures and prevents most athlete.. f..."

        Shouldn't that be: "Tinactin cures and prevents most cases of athlete's foot?

        I don't think it is possible to "pluralize" athlete's foot, really.

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on May 02, 2003 at 16:17 UTC

    Wouldn't that be "The former athelete's feet"?


    Examine what is said, not who speaks.
    1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
    2) The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible
    3) Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
    Arthur C. Clarke.
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by newrisedesigns (Curate) on May 05, 2003 at 12:43 UTC
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by Courage (Parson) on May 03, 2003 at 07:55 UTC
    the plural is "atleticheskie nogi" if we're speaking Russian.

    Courage, the Cowardly Dog

      Oh, if we're collecting foreign languages, it's Schwoißfiaß in my local German dialect, Swabian (Schwäbisch). Try to pronounce that :).

        "Schwoißfiaß."

        How was my accent?

        Or was I supposed to pronounce "that"?

      heh, not really... Not in the context that it's mostly associated with and as tye clarified - it's a common disease. So there's no "tripperi". :o)
        You're right, my bad.
        I've checked dictionary and now it is "dermatofitoz" or "mikoz"...
        Interesting enough that "athletic heart" means good health, and this is probably a trick of voting booth

        English teacher warned us about such words that act like false frends of translators.

        Courage, the Cowardly Dog

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by crenz (Priest) on May 02, 2003 at 15:44 UTC

    Is this the typical "senior developer's disease" -- ie. what you get when you stick your feet under your desk 10+ hours a day?

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by Anonymous Monk on May 06, 2003 at 17:01 UTC
    How can I answer this when I am still plagued by the plurality of mouse

    At $store there are so many mouses(?) to choose from
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by BigLug (Chaplain) on May 07, 2003 at 21:47 UTC
    'Athlete's foot' has no plural -- there is only one condition called 'Athlete's Foot' -- thus it is never ever used in a plural sense.

    "He has Athlete's Foot"
    "They have Athlete's Foot"
    "There were 17 cases of Athlete's Foot"

    See, 'Athlete's foot' isn't a real noun and isn't a real adjective. It's about halfway between. It's the description of a condition.

    "His {situation} was {dire}"
    "His {condition} was {Athlete's Foot}"

    However the plural form of these is interesting:

    "Their {situation} was {dire}"
    "Their {condition} was {Athlete's Foot}"

    Huh? Now how come we don't pluralise when we're talking about more than one person? Because we're still only talking about one situation and one condition. If they all were in different situations we could have 'Their situations were dire', however there is only one condition that can be described as 'Athlete's foot' and thus the only way we can have more than one condition on the second line is to say 'Their conditions were Athlete's Foot and Measles'..

    Now, while we're talking about plurals, how about 'Court Martial'?

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by michaeld (Monk) on May 05, 2003 at 07:55 UTC

    I'd go for athlete's fetish... but that doesn't appear to be an option...
    ;-)

    Cheers,
    MichaelD

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by feloniousMonk (Pilgrim) on May 05, 2003 at 14:16 UTC
    a locker room :-)

    -felonious
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by tbone1 (Monsignor) on May 05, 2003 at 17:48 UTC
    How about an option for "disgusting"?

    --
    tbone1
    Ain't enough 'O's in 'stoopid' to describe that guy.
    - Dave "the King" Wilson

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by rir (Vicar) on May 11, 2003 at 02:28 UTC
    Difficult questions like this are why people turn to computer languages.

    Incidentally ethylene glycol is a home remedy for fungal infections. I have seen it work dramatically.

    Ethylene glycol is the main ingredient in some common automotive antifreezes.

Cases of athlete's foot
by allolex (Curate) on May 03, 2003 at 11:51 UTC

    !

    It's non-count ;)

    --
    Allolex

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by $name (Pilgrim) on May 02, 2003 at 15:40 UTC
    I'm saying its Athletes foot <no '>
    $name
    <>
    OnE BY OnE ThE PenguinS SteaL MY SanitY
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by Anonymous Monk on May 07, 2003 at 17:39 UTC
    according to Brian Regan it would be "many, much Athlete's footzen"
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by gilbert0 (Monk) on May 08, 2003 at 18:17 UTC
    The thing i'm wondering about is: What has this got to do with Perl?

    p.s.: if it does has something to do with it, does coding barefoot (or is is barefeet... :p) help?
      gilbert0, I see you haven't been around The Monastery for very long. You'll soon notice that pretty much anything goes when it comes to the Voting Booth. Don't worry too much about it :-)

      -- vek --
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by chazzz (Pilgrim) on May 07, 2003 at 14:54 UTC
    It is a trick question, there is no plural for "athlete's foot".
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by mojotoad (Monsignor) on May 07, 2003 at 22:26 UTC
    Simple: lots of athlete's foot.

    Matt

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by runrig (Abbot) on May 08, 2003 at 00:19 UTC
    On a somewhat related note (at least in my twisted mind), name 3 professional sports teams in the US whose names do not end in the letter 's'. (Update: Uh-oh, I haven't been keeping up, now there are at least four).

    Update: Ok, AM got me. In my limited universe, I was actually only thinking of the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB. And even there, I haven't really counted lately :-)

      There are over a dozen in MLS and the WNBA alone!
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by mattr (Curate) on May 08, 2003 at 11:00 UTC
    I just have to say that this morning I was in a bakery and every time this woman walked past me I got this overpowering reek of mildew wash over me. That's gotta be worse than athlete's feet. Whatever they call it. (Don't Ask / Don't Tell)
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by thelenm (Vicar) on May 05, 2003 at 20:34 UTC
    Mu.

    -- Mike

    --
    just,my${.02}

      Why do the feets have to be affected? Consider:-

      "Darling, there's an athlete's foot under the bed."
      "Darling, there's an athlete's feet under the bed."
      "Darling, there's some athletes' feet under the bed."



      Never lick a gift horse in the mouth.
        "Darling, there's some athletes' feet under the bed."

        "Er... honey, what are all these athletes doing under the bed? :-\"

Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by Anonymous Monk on May 02, 2003 at 16:27 UTC
    /me wonders if tye's foots are itchin' ;)
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by jbert (Priest) on May 12, 2003 at 16:52 UTC
    And the plural of mongoose is?
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    polygoose. :-)
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by BubbaJones (Novice) on May 12, 2003 at 20:35 UTC
    Fumunda Cheese.
Re: The plural of "athlete's foot" is...
by QM (Parson) on Aug 17, 2005 at 14:33 UTC
    Other choices:

    Athloot's Feet
    Fete de Athlete
    A Peeling Mess

    -QM
    --
    Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

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