Q&A: A very interesting real-life example that is hard to formulate as a philosophical definition
A very interesting real-life example that is hard to formulate as a philosophical definition
Question
Hello Rabbi, as is known, it is brought in the holy books that only the zodiac sign of Pisces is a plural sign, unlike the other signs. And even though we seemingly have the signs Libra and Gemini, this is not called plural, since you cannot call a sign “a twin” or “balanced,” because a twin has no meaning without its counterpart; therefore it is still considered singular. I wanted to ask the Rabbi what his opinion is about how to define buttocks (in the vernacular, tuches). It too is apparently made up of two units, and if so then it is two and not one. Or perhaps, since its whole aesthetic is only in the combination of the two units, and one mound has no meaning, at least from the standpoint of its aesthetic form, without the other one—to illustrate this so it will be understood, imagine a young man meeting a beautiful young woman with one mound in her buttocks; obviously that is not beautiful. What does the Rabbi think?
Answer
Just yesterday I heard a Hebrew-language segment on the radio in which someone from the Academy of the Hebrew Language spoke about words that are always plural, like “youth” and others. See also here: https://www.safa-ivrit.org/irregulars/onlyplural.php
Your buttocks question is unrelated to that. You’re simply mixing apples and oranges. A linguistic question with an aesthetic one. Unless you only meant to troll. If so, you succeeded…