The Glade 4.0

I was proofreading a job description for a friend (not related to my official job), and took exception to the following phrase...

"... responsible for responding to security incidences..."

I suggested this should read...

".. responsible for responding to security incidents..."

I'm definitely not a grammar expert, but find the web definitions I've found somewhat confusing.

This site seems to back up my opinion...
http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/incidences.html

But it's published by Washington State University, which immediately brings its integrity into question :p~~~

Anyone more grammatically wise than me I me want to chime in here?

You're right.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

What he said. ^

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

'grammatically wise than I'

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Incidents is more correct but incidences has over 6 million results on Google, so both are fine.

Why would you go and ruin a perfectly good sentence by introducing a glaring pronoun error?

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I was pretty sure of myself when I first encountered this. However after reading usages for the word incidence, I realized it wasn't as incorrect as I had originally thought.

I've always thought of the word incidence as the term used to describe the angle of a airplane wing in relationship to the centerline of the fuselage. For example, "The wing incidence of a Piper J-3 is +2.5 degrees".

However, after some web searches, I realized my understanding of that word was incomplete.


Some usage examples from this site...
http://sentence.yourdictionary.com/incidence

"We need your help to reduce the incidence of domestic violence in the boro."
"There was no increased incidence of liver tumors in rats."

This is in reference to an "occurrence" of something, which isn't that far off from the second of my original examples, which is why I started wondering if it was really that cut and dry...

I guess what I'm saying is, that while my suggestion of 'incidents' would definitely be correct, I could see where using 'incidence' in that context, perhaps with a slightly different sentence structure, wouldn't be completely wrong...

Out of curiosity Khross, why is "I" capitalized, but "me" left uncapitalized?

LOL - I KNEW I could count on you guys

(original post re-fixed )

He didn't, until you told him to.
Or are you more grammatically wise than me am?

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

The "than" Midgen uses is not a subordinating conjunction. It's a preposition leading off an adverbial phrase. Consequently, the appropriate pronoun in his case is objective -- me -- not subjective -- I.

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Man I knew it! I'm SOOOO smart!

Actually, it's not an adverbial phrase. Because the phrase modifies the subject "anyone", it's an adjectival one (the introductory signal is the 'subject understood' relative pronoun: "who is"); and according to the wiki article, "I" is still the correct usage, not "me".

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

uh...oh.....

/draws a Kilroy was here doodle on the bunker wall.

Incidence is a statistical term usually medical in nature) dealing with frequency.

Incident is an event.

In the phrase given, incident is correct.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I think Michael has the simplified and correct answer, or at least it sounds good.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"