We need to settle this debate: Is it OK to call records ‘vinyls’?

English is a living language that is always changing and evolving. But if there's one thing that needs to stay the same, it's what we call music stored on polyvinyl chloride.

I try not to be judgmental, but I have a thing for correct nomenclature and proper pronunciations. I’ll let slide anyone who pronounces the “L” in “calm,” and I’ll give a little bit of slack to anyone who initially struggles with “quinoa.” But if you insist that “Uber” (as in “You’ve had too much to drink. Let me call you an Uber”) is pronounced “Yuber,” that’s when the red mist descends.

I also get a little crazy when someone pronounces David Bowie’s last name like it’s the front of a boat. Despite being spelled “Gahan,” the name of the lead singer of Depeche Mode wants you to know that it’s “Dave GAHN.” And the guy out front of Queens of the Stone Age? Contrary to anything you’ve heard, it’s Josh HOMmy. (Trust me. I’ve talked to the man.)

I get even more exorcised when someone insists on using the word “vinyls” when it comes to music pressed onto plastic. This isn’t just a mispronunciation; it’s a modern perversion that’s crept into the English language over the last couple of decades.

English is very strange when it comes to how words are supposed to sound. It can only be learned, though, through tough thorough thought. In most cases, we’ll add an “S” to a word to communicate that there’s more than one of an object. Linguists say that mass nouns are subject to “countification.” But not always.

Vinyl is like deer. We don’t say “Hey, look at that herd of deers!” It’s just “deer.” Type either term into any word processing environment and you’ll immediately be greeted by a squiggly red line beneath it, telling you to smarten up. But too many people new to record collecting insist that if you have more than one vinyl record, you have vinyls. No, you don’t. You have two or more vinyl records.

I understand how this can be confusing. A “record” is anything that was recorded, be it on vinyl, magnetized cellulose tape, or the amalgamation of plastic and aluminum that goes into the manufacture of a compact disc. When old-school records (read: vinyl) went out of fashion in the ’90s, we still went to a record store to buy our CDs. A CD is a subspecies of record. So is a cassette, just with a more specific name.

I was at a record show last weekend with tables and tables of LPs (long-playing 33 1/3 RPM records) and seven-inch singles (45 RPM records) in a hall that was filled with collectors of all ages. In that community, you will never hear “vinyl” used in its plural form. If anyone did, they’d immediately expose themselves as a hobbyist, a dabbler and a newbie. And if you’ve ever seen the movie High Fidelity, you’ll know how grumpy the vinyl community can be. “Shouldn’t you be shopping at Urban Outfitters for music to play on your portable Crosley turntable?”

To be fair, when the vinyl album was first introduced in 1948, “vinyls” was an acceptable term. After all, the linguistic rules of “countification” applied, right? In fact, if you go back to music magazines from the 1950 and 1960ss, you will occasionally run across a plural form of vinyl. I quote from a Time magazine article published in 1964: “While a few audio purists might quibble over the fidelity of some of the vintage vinyls …”