Talk:poppers

RFV discussion: February–March 2021

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poppers

Rfv-sense: "(informal, plural only) Drugs of the alkyl nitrate class used recreationally as a sexual stimulant, especially among gay men."

I haven't seen any sign that this is anything other than the plural of the corresponding sense of popper. DCDuring (talk) 05:50, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• I've been bold and converted it to a plural form of the singular. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:31, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• For starters, "bottle of poppers" has a huge number of hits on google and google books. Such a phrase wouldn't make sense if we gloss "poppers" as the plural of the sense "a capsule of amyl nitrite". See also, quotes like "Nicole Scherzinger ‘sniffed poppers’ at a gay bar". This does not carry the meaning that she inhaled from more than one bottle of poppers. Also worth noting that the Wikipedia article on the drug is titled Poppers. Their naming policy is to generally use the singular except in the case of plurale tantum (and a few other specific situations that don't apply here). Compare Blunt (cannabis), or Speedball (drug). Colin M (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• On the basis of many examples such as "A woman has died after drinking an entire bottle of poppers", that apparently does not mean "bottle of capsules", which would be the implication if "poppers" were an ordinary plural of our existing singular "drug" sense, I believe that this RFV needs further consideration, and for now I have reinstated the entry as it was at the time of RFV, while the RFV runs its course. Mihia (talk) 23:26, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

A 'bottle of poppers' makes as much sense to me as a 'bottle of pills' or a 'bottle of ampules'.

• 1980, Leo Rosten, King Silky!, page 87:

  It's bottles with prescription labels I'm after ... I spot Valium (natch) and Benadryl. And there's a bottle of ampules.

Sniffed poppers is also ambiguous.

I have looked at a lot of Google Books hits for 'sniff poppers' and haven't found unambiguous support for the plural-only. Please, provide the evidence, quotes from durable media like books, magazines, etc on Citations:poppers. See WT:ATTEST. It's easy enough to restore your definition, just as it was easy to correct your mislabeling (without evidence) of popper as dated'.

I agree that the challenged definition should be restored. DCDuring (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

No one would deny that "bottle of ampules" is a thing that can exist, but I question whether e.g. "drinking an entire bottle of poppers" in my example actually means that, though I suppose it could be possible if all the ampules are individually opened. Probably more watertight examples can be found. However, I don't think this sense is "plural only", since uncountable uses such as "how much poppers" or "too much poppers" exist. The uncountable sense may in fact be easier to verify than the plural one. In fact, I wonder whether the uncountable sense is primarily what we are talking about here, as something distinct from the ordinary plural of "popper". Mihia (talk) 10:50, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

This isn't a debate forum. Let's get some citations. Does it take a singular verb? A plural one? Both? is it uncountable? Let the citations be unambiguous, so there is no doubt. There seems to be enough literature to find the citations. Who care if a noun is plural-only. A language learner would/should want to know how to use the term properly, which includes verb agreement. DCDuring (talk) 05:34, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

That's a good point, but I don't think it's uncommon for a plurale tantum to occasionally be used like an uncountable noun. e.g. (found on gbooks): "Depending on the value of the shoot and the chances of being able to actually see our Phat Farm logo would determine how much clothes would be given." "How much poppers" only gets 22 google results, and some of those are false positives ("I realized how much poppers had become a mental crutch for me."), so it's a very rare construction. Generally the word follows a plural verb agreement. I just added a quote at poppers demonstrating this. Colin M (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Nevertheless, if "poppers" is like "clothes" then it should be correct to say "how many poppers", rather than "how much poppers", when referring to a quantity of the substance as opposed to individual countable items such as doses/ampoules/containers. This sounds odd to my ear, like "how many vodka". However, instances of e.g. "poppers are a drug", apparently not referring to countable items, do exist, in addition to instances of e.g. "poppers is a drug". Where verb agreement is concerned there may be some uncertainty or difference of view about whether it refers to a plural thing or uncountable thing. Perhaps it is "properly" uncountable, but people forget this when they see the "s", and think they need a plural verb agreement. Mihia (talk) 10:50, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

What Mihia said. DCDuring (talk) 16:34, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused by your first sentence. "How many clothes" is, to my ear, unacceptable, in the same way that I would find it bizarre to say "I packed three clothes". It would require a measure word, as in "How many bags of clothes". Similarly, one would generally say "How many bottles of poppers". There are some words, like scissors or pants that resist being modified by either much or many (without a measure word). Colin M (talk) 07:38, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Poppers are not sold in bottles of glass ampoules. I cannot find a source that positively states this, in the same way that I can't find a source that positively states that French women don't wear colanders on their heads. But for anyone with a passing familiarity with the subject, "bottle of poppers" and "sniffed poppers" are not ambiguous in the way you're imagining. Here's a site with a general overview of poppers that may help. The second paragraph of the "Overview" section says that poppers used to be sold in capsules that would be cracked open. The first paragraph of the "drug use" section says that poppers are "typically taken as fumes inhaled directly from small bottles". That's what a "bottle of poppers" refers to. It's a bottle containing a volatile liquid. If you take the lid off and inhale from the bottle, you are "sniffing poppers". If you don't like that site, just do a google image search, or read the wikipedia article, or track down a gay friend or coworker and ask them to explain. Colin M (talk) 01:15, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Focus on the word poppers, not the chemical. Any knowledge you might have about the product can just help you create better hypotheses about the word. As a dictionary, we gather evidence about the meaning of each word and how it is used syntactically. DCDuring (talk) 16:38, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Poppers have been sold in ampules. Now they may be sold in some other form. Poppers in ampules is a countable noun. Poppers in a bottle should be an uncountable noun. Further, it might be used with either a singular or plural verb. An uncountable is used with certain determiners, like much, that are not used with countable nouns. If poppers is used with a singular form of a verb that would indicate unambiguously that the uncountable form is in use. Examples of common singular verb forms are is, was, has, and does. There may be other verbs commonly used with poppers that could also be included in search terms used to search Google Books and UseNet, possibly also, Google News and Google Scholar. DCDuring (talk) 05:42, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

As I wrote above to Mihia, not every noun falls neatly into the mass vs. count noun dichotomy. I can't say "how much trousers" nor can I say "how many trousers". Colin M (talk) 08:05, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

@Colin M:

1915, Official Reports of the Debates of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada, page 770, column 2:

[…] how many trousers, breeches and pantaloons have been ordered from each firm;

J3133 (talk) 08:30, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Noted. But based on this, would you say it would be appropriate to add (countable) to trousers? Colin M (talk) 09:12, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Just noting for possible comparison as a tricky plural-only-and/or-uncountable case the word spirits in the drinks sense. (Possibly slightly different in certain uses as there is more than one type, unlike "poppers", of which I imagine there is only one type.) Mihia (talk) 18:01, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

According to the pedia article, all poppers have been alkyl nitrites, but there are several kinds: isoamyl nitrite, isopentyl nitrite, and isopropyl nitrite. There is also isobutyl nitrite, which may not be an alkyl nitrite. Our definition, which limits the word to amyl nitrite. may not be scientifically accurate. DCDuring (talk) 00:01, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this is a good comparison. It seems to be a recurring pattern with illicit substances. Another good example is drugs. Right now we just define it as the plural of drug, but consider this headline: He brought drugs to the London courthouse. It didn't end well for him. In the article, we learn the man in the headline "was caught with four grams of ketamine". So drugs here does not refer to more than one psychoactive substance, but rather some quantity of a substance. I believe someone mentioned steroids at one point as well, and it follows the same pattern. If I say "Bob took steroids before the game", he cannot refute my statement by saying "That's not true, I only took tetrahydrogestrinone!". Colin M (talk) 08:00, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

This isn't all that hard. All you need is to have citations to unambiguously support the syntax you advocate. I am sure you could find them. I dispute the utility of the label plural only. What users might want to know about a given definition of a noun is whether it is used with a singular or plural verb. That is something that citations can show. DCDuring (talk) 23:35, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 22:14, 18 March 2021 (UTC)