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[li]Her labia are hanging out and flapping in the wind[/li][li]Her labia is hanging out and flapping in the wind[/li][/list]
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”?
Labia is the plural of Labium/. Labia = Lips. Are.
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.
I’ll take “Grammar lessons you wouldn’t expect to find in a grade school textbook” for $1000, Alex.
“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.
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. 
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.
Damn your eyes. I have sore throat, and that laughter hurt.
What is the sound of one labium flapping in the wind?
What is the sound of one labium clapping? A slap in the face!
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 !! 
Bilingual? :eek:
Shouldn’t that be bilabial ? – 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.
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!
Phlbbbmbmbpppppp…
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”.
lingua = ‘tongue’, so it’s difficult to be certain.
Yeah, that’s probably an accurate summary of common usage.
This sounds like a question for Charles Harrington Elster, who’s book What in the Word? 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.