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Perhaps Websters is referring to incidence in its scientific meanings, where
it still has a plural. Under the meaning of incidence in physics, the OED
gives a quote from 1871 (Tyndall): "The searcher welcomes every gleam, and
seeks to augment his light by indirect incidences." But other than in a
scientific context, incidence in modern usage has no plural.
Incidence is not to incidences as negligence is to negligences. Negligence,
besides meaning carelessness, can also mean an instance of carelessness.
Incidence -- "the degree or range of occurrence or effect" (Webster's New
World) -- is strictly an abstract noun, which would be to incidences as,
say, fraudulence -- the quality or fact of being fraudulent -- would be to
fraudulences, or gratitude -- thankful appreciation or the quality or
condition of being grateful -- would be to gratitudes.
Incidentally, up to several hundred years ago incidence WAS synonymous with
incident -- ergo, plural, incidences. ( And it used to be that gratitude
could refer to an instance of itself, to mean an expression of thankfulness,
a favor, a gift: "we sent them a gratitude.")
So what am I fussing, right? Why not return to 17th-century usage? Well.
Because there's a place for incidence as it has developed -- there's a
reason it split away from incident. We needed such a word, so that we could
refer to "the high incidence of malnutrition among the poor," and so on.
The language is richer for the introduction of incidence as an abstract noun.
...Joanna
>> Golly, all this fracas over incidents/incidences...Webster's 3rd
>> Edition is considered America's OED, #1 in 'Merican academics. Well
>> here's the proof from the pudding:
>>
>> Look at page 1142 for the definition of incidence. There you will
>> find incidence/[pronunciation]/N [in italics] -s.
>>
>> That "-s" at the end indicates that to make incidence plural, ad an
>> "s".
>>
>> How do I know that -s is what I say it is? Refer to explanation 15A
>> under inflectional forms, section 4.4 and 4.5:
>>
>> "...a noun that has only a regular English plural formed by adding the
>> suffix -s or the suffix -es or by changing the final -y to -i- and
>> adding the suffix -es is indicated by an -s or -es following the label
>> N [italics]...[examples] bird...N[italics] -s, love...N[italics]
>> -s...."
>>
>> "...all standard English nouns can have regular English plurals...such
>> endings are give analogically in this dictionary to nouns that may
>> little be used in the plural...All that their presence means in cases
>> of doubtful frequency is that these plurals are available for use if
>> needed..."
>>
>> You'll find that most nouns in the English language are made plural by
>> adding an -s or -es. Naturally, there are exceptions such as those
>> that end in "f," "ff," or "fe."
>>
>> Oh, by the way, "remember his past negligences" is used in the
>> definition of negligence!
>>
>>
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C. Joanna Sheldon, PhD
GRAPHTEX Consulting
Technical Writing, Information Design,
Translation (French, German, Italian)
cjs10 -at- cornell -dot- edu * joanna -at- well -dot- com
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