1394: Singular of Genitalia? Oct 5, 2018

There are plenty of words for which are plural in construction but (often) singular in usage. 'Physics' is one such word, and often so is 'bacteria' or 'data', the singular of which is 'bacterium' and 'datum respectively but people don't often bother to make the distinction. Indeed, a common pluralizing suffix in Latin was '-a' as exhibited in the above two words, but also in others such as 'genitalia' for which no singular form exists in English. The word comes from the plural of 'genitalis' but because for both men and women multiple organs act together in tandem, people will simply refer to specific organs such as the cervix or the testis if the singular is desired.

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