Incidence/Incidences

[Joanna Sheldon <cjs10 -at- CORNELL -dot- EDU>]

First of all, my apologies to Scott G.  If I'd read your piece instead of
flying through it, I would have realized you were grinning when writing
about incidences.  In parentheses, though, Scott, orientated is,
unfortunately, A.E. (acceptable English) -- yup, ugly as it is.

As to incidences (for those who wrote to correct my misplaced vituperation),
well, there just aren't any.  This is the trouble with dictionaries that use
synonyms, unexplained.  My Random House did it, too.  But, as Scott was
trying to point out,  incidence is only synonymous with occurrence when
occurrence is singular.  As in, "The incidence of Lime disease in New York
State is well-documented."  It's the fact of something occurring that we're
talking about, not an individual occurrence.  On the other hand you'd want
to say, "Few instances of Lime disease have been documented in Garden county."

(The OED is wise in avoiding all mention of the word occurrence, when
explaining incidence.  Other than the scientific meanings (pertaining to
physics, astronomy and geometry) incidence means: "The act or fact of
falling upon, coming in contact with, or affecting in some way" or, "Manner
of falling upon or affecting in any way; the range or scope of a thing, the
extent of its influence or effects.")

Whew.  Hope that does it.

...JS

**********************
C. Joanna Sheldon, Ph.D.
GRAPHTEX Consulting
Technical Writing, Information Design,
Translation (French, German, Italian)
cjs10 -at- cornell -dot- edu
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