Subject/Verb agreement for Labia

[bienville]

Her labia are hanging out and flapping in the wind
Her labia is hanging out and flapping in the wind


I've always thought of labia as paired (two pairs when making the distinction between majora and minora) but often I hear people use the singular formation of the verb when talking about labia.

I think it should be "Labia are".

Am I wrong? Is it "Labia is"?

[vetbridge]

Labia is the plural of Labium/. Labia = Lips. Are.

[Susie Derkins]

I see your question has been answered, but I just had to stop in anyway to thank you for putting into my brain the image of a woman with labia like mainsails, powering a boat with her genitals.

[ultrafilter]

I'll take "Grammar lessons you wouldn't expect to find in a grade school textbook" for $1000, Alex.

[Giles]

"Labia" is indeed plural in Latin, and so should be plural in English. However, there are some Latin plurals that move towards being singular in English, like "data" and "media". The word "agenda" has gone all the way: it's now just singular in English.

[Polycarp]

At the risk of offending samclem for witticisms instead of staid answers, may I offer the suggestion that labia will always agree with bilingual fricatives. :)

[bienville]

there are some Latin plurals that move towards being singular in English

See that's the tricky part.

Although I personally think of labia as plural, referring distinctly to each individual "labium" (a word which no one uses ever), is it also possible that labia has become a singular- but a collective noun, at once referring to all the dangly bits grouped together as a unit???

Consider the world of piercing <fighting the urge to post a link>.

I've never heard a woman decorated in such a way explain that she has her labium pierced. She'll say that she has her labia pierced even if she decorated only the East Wing leaving the West Wing vacant.

[furt]

I'll take "Grammar lessons you wouldn't expect to find in a grade school textbook" for $1000, Alex.Damn your eyes. I have sore throat, and that laughter hurt.

[Mangetout]

What is the sound of one labium flapping in the wind?

[Bryan Ekers]

What is the sound of one labium clapping? A slap in the face!

[What the .... ?!?!]

What is the sound of one labium flapping in the wind?

If no one was there to hear it would it make a sound?

(assumes the owner is deaf I guess).

Gotta keep this baby near the top !! :D

[Malacandra]

At the risk of offending samclem for witticisms instead of staid answers, may I offer the suggestion that labia will always agree with bilingual fricatives. :)

Bilingual? :eek:

[Giles]

At the risk of offending samclem for witticisms instead of staid answers, may I offer the suggestion that labia will always agree with bilingual fricatives. :)
Shouldn't that be bilabial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilabial_consonant) ? -- even if the labia involved here are those of the mouth, not the genitalia.

[Malacandra]

Shouldn't that be bilabial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilabial_consonant) ? -- even if the labia involved here are those of the mouth, not the genitalia.

No, I think Polycarp was pursuing the "agreeable friction" angle here.

[bienville]

Gotta keep this baby near the top !! :D

If the joke posts will keep this Thread alive long enough for someone to address the "collective noun" question in Post #7, then please be my guest and joke away!

:D

[vetbridge]

What is the sound of one labium flapping in the wind?
Phlbbbmbmbpppppp...

[vetbridge]

I've never heard a woman decorated in such a way explain that she has her labium pierced. She'll say that she has her labia pierced even if she decorated only the East Wing leaving the West Wing vacant.
Women I know with "below the waist non-clit piercings" refer to them without using the term labia. Most say, "I have my lip(s) pierced" or "I have my pussy lip(s) pierced".

[Mangetout]

Shouldn't that be bilabial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilabial_consonant) ? -- even if the labia involved here are those of the mouth, not the genitalia.lingua = 'tongue', so it's difficult to be certain.

[ultrafilter]

Although I personally think of labia as plural, referring distinctly to each individual "labium" (a word which no one uses ever), is it also possible that labia has become a singular- but a collective noun, at once referring to all the dangly bits grouped together as a unit???

Yeah, that's probably an accurate summary of common usage.

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

This sounds like a question for Charles Harrington Elster, who's book What in the Word? (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156031973/102-9870001-8392147?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance) proved to be invaluably entertaining during a recent 20 hour marathon drive from Minnesota to Georgia. The soundbyte Q&A format made it perfect for my driving-distracted attention span as my girlfriend read it outloud.

[Nimue]

At the risk of offending samclem for witticisms instead of staid answers, may I offer the suggestion that labia will always agree with bilingual fricatives. :)Hmm, I think that would tickle. Let's try a rapid series of interdental plosives, instead. Voiceless, if you please.


(Btw, I was taught bilabial, as opposed to bilingual, as well. Not to nitpick.)

[Excalibre]

See that's the tricky part.

Although I personally think of labia as plural, referring distinctly to each individual "labium" (a word which no one uses ever), is it also possible that labia has become a singular- but a collective noun, at once referring to all the dangly bits grouped together as a unit???
That seems to be a common pattern with these Latin plurals. If the plural is used far more often than the singular (as with data and datum), but the plural appears not to have any plural morphology (as in, it doesn't end in -s as native English plurals do), it makes sense for it to be reanalyzed as a singular mass noun. Which is probably the prevailing usage of data today - "the data is corrupt", "an important piece of data", &c are more common than the etymologically correct "the data are corrupt" and "an important datum". The singular in particular seems almost unused. Media is a similar example, although in that case the plural and singular seem more to have developed into independent words (medium in reference to, for instance, a particular form of art, is alive and well, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear it pluralized as mediums) while media is a mass noun referring to the press in general and occasionally is even pluralized again to medias (though that grates on many people's ears, including mine.)

Most of these words are second declension neuter nouns in Latin, with the ending -UM in the nominative singular and -A in the nominative plural. Even in the Romance languages, a similar process reanalyzing the neuter plurals into singular mass nouns is fairly common. For instance, Latin OVUM, plural OVA essentially split into two separate words in some of the Romance languages; each of the words underwent the various phonetic processes that all Latin words underwent, and in modern Italian the results are uovo and uova. Uovo, because of its -o ending, has been reanalyzed as a masculine singular, and is the basic term for "egg". Uova is also understood as a singular, but feminine because of its ending, and it means "roe" and functions as a mass noun (as do "roe" and "caviar" in English, of course.)