A few SOL authors have used 'foots' as the plural of 'foot' in contexts like 'putting their foots down', meaning to insist on something.
I want to use it in the context of relative speeds of aquatic gastropods ie mollusc type A move faster than mollusc type B when they put their foots down.
To me, 'foots' feels wrong but 'feet' feels even wronger in that context.
(I'm aware that 'foots' is valid when used as a verb eg the taxpayer foots the bill.)
AJ
both of your first 2 examples of "foots" feel wrong to me while using "feet" instead feels right.
Your third example "foots the bill" is correct as you say...maybe because it does not have anything to do with a body part? "shrug"
Your third example "foots the bill"
Does that even count as a plural in that case? It's being used as a verb with a singular object.
'putting their foots down'
It's "putting their foot down."
Let's play devil's advocate.
"putting the foot down" means to put one foot down, so now both feet are on the ground, giving a better stand.
If multiple people do this, why would "putting their foot down" be correct? Each of them puts his/her foot down, one foot each. Therefore "feet" would be misleading (not both feet!) but the singular "foot" implies it was a shared foot. "Putting their foots down" would describe it best.
This reminds me of a sketch by the late Bavarian comedian Karl Valentin, who argues over the correct name for Semmelknödel (German pronunciation: [ˈzɛml̩ˌknøːdl]). They are a kind of bread dumplings made from dried wheat bread rolls like Kaiser rolls, milk, and eggs. The name derives from southern Germany, where semmel means bread rolls and knödel refers to something that has been kneaded.
Valentin argues it must be Semmelnknödeln.
Semmeln is the plural of Semmel, Knödeln is the Bavarian plural of Knödel (the German plural is Knödel),
Valentin reasons: to make the dish you need more than one Semmel and you never make only one Knödel, therefore both plural!
HM.
I think your devil's advocate argument is the reason why some people use 'foots'. A quick google search (unfortunately my old browser gets a 'google lite' which doesn't give me an overall count) found plenty of examples, some by national newspapers, albeit tabloids.
'Put your foot down' has two meanings I can think of. 1) To insist on something eg Daryl wanted to stay out late but his father put his foot down. In that case it's a metaphor.
2) To accelerate/drive fast eg Natasha was still in the lead but Christine was gaining on her so she put her foot down. In that case it started out literal but has morphed into a metaphor - obviously molluscs don't have throttle pedals.
AJ
Looking at Google ngram viewer, foots does show up in the corpi, but feet is 4 orders of magnitude more common.
Looking at Google ngram viewer, foots does show up in the corpi, but feet is 4 orders of magnitude more common.
I'm not surprised. There can't be a lot of cases where the writer wants to emphasise that multiple participants each do something with one of their feet, and even fewer in formal English.
AJ
I'm not surprised. There can't be a lot of cases where the writer wants to emphasise that multiple participants each do something with one of their feet, and even fewer in formal English.
I suspect a significant chunk of those cases do not involve even metaphorical references to human anatomy.
Do you suspect 'foots' as in 'foots the bill'? I thought that was informal.
The corpi used by Google's ngrams viewer includes fiction so it's not all formal writing.
On top of that, I suspect that there may be other idiosyncratic regional uses.
I speculated up thread about shortening footlocker to foot, so in that kind of case the plural of the long form would be footlockers, so the short form becomes foots.
in 'foots the bill'
To make an educated guess, this comes from accepting the total of the bill by underwriting the bill at it's foot. It then could be presented to some underling to actually pay the sum.
HM.
Looking at Google ngram viewer, foots does show up
"put their foot" and "they put their foot down" show up on ngram.
"put their foots" and "they put their foots down" do not show up.
You cannot use "foots" there. It's not a singular/plural issue. They aren't literally putting their feet down. It's an expression.
"put their foots" and "they put their foots down" do not show up.
I did not suggest that as a source of foots showing up in the ngram viewer.
Here's my attempt to enumerate the cases which need to be considered when trying to remove ambiguity.
A group of beings collectively own a single object which they deploy as a group.
A group of beings each has their own object which they exercise when deploying collectively.
A group of beings each has one or more of an object, but they exercise only one at a time when deploying collectively.
A group of beings each has one or more of an object and they exercise one or many up to their total ownership when deploying collectively.
My brain is now fried. Hannibal, please put those fava beans and your nice chianti away because you're beginning to worry me.
AJ
It might make a difference what foots is referring to.
As a body part or unit of measure, feet is the proper plural.
However, if they are using foot as short hand for footlocker, I don't think you'd use feet in that context. The full plural would be footlockers, not feetlockers.
And then there is "defeat" which is losing a battle or a war. Or possibly having your feet removed or amputated. Plural would be defeats.
There was a UK politician called Michael Foot - so his family could be referred to as the Foots.
I know of no dialect where foots is an acceptable plural of the noun foot, nor any idiom that would allow it. The plural is always feet.
Foots is allowed as a verbal form only.
I know of no dialect where foots is an acceptable plural of the noun foot, nor any idiom that would allow it. The plural is always feet.
It's a feeture of Old English consonant declension.
than mollusc type B when they put their foots down.
It probably feels wrong because a mollusk has only one foot.
Put your foot down.
This expression is thought to have originated in 16th century but it actually became popular and common in 18th century. It is observable that when you clump or tramp your foot on ground, it means to demand someone's attention. It also means to express a strong demand of something.
Honestly, if I saw someone use "foots" my first thought would be that the author meant "foot's" and forgot the apostrophe. Even "foots the bill" isn't exactly correct even though it does have common usage.
Note that the phrase "foot the bill" was originally "to foot up" (to pay up) and comes from the idea that the foot of the bill (the end) is the total to be paid. Footing the bill dates to early 19th century accounting, oddly enough.