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IN WHICH… VINYL PEEVES APPEAR

*Price stickers attached to the actual record covers, and, even worse, those informative stickers attached to the outside coverings of sealed records, which thus have to be discarded when opened or carefully removed without tearing, then attached to new plastic covers.

*Displays of records in racks for sale not placed in plastic covers.

*Inappropriate music being played in record shops when you are the only person in there and clearly unlikely to be interested in that style.

*Shop staff blatantly ignoring you and making no effort to acknowledge your presence when you are the only person in the shop.

*Arriving at a record shop whose website says it is open, when it isn’t.

*Record shops with no second-hand stock.

*Records listed for sale on a record shop website which become unavailable when you ask in the shop.

The peeves above are mine. I do, of course, have many more, but here is one suggested by a contributor to an American website, Dangerous Minds, possibly hiding their true identity behind the name, ‘Emma Peel’ and looking to avenge themselves: ‘“Vinyls” is a GARGANTUAN peeve of mine.’

To which the response of one ‘Locode’ was: ‘The plural of vinyl is vinyl.’

Which was promptly rubbished by another poster to the site, calling him or herself A Shelf of Bossks (no idea!): ‘No, it isn’t. Mass nouns don’t have plurals. The plural of “vinyl” is “I don’t understand mass nouns”.’

All three contributors appeared to have peeved each other! But they are not the only ones fixated on this issue – there is a whole website dedicated to the controversy, called predictably enough: thepluralofvinyl.com. On another site, Language Log, Mark Liberman took it on himself to spell things out: ‘If you don’t hang out with millennial hipsters, you might not have noticed that cool kids are listening to music on turntables playing old-fashioned vinyl records. And you might also have missed a fascinating case of peeve emergence: the “rule” that one of these objects is called a “vinyl”, while (say) three of them should be called “three vinyl”, never “three vinyls”. According to this “rule”, instead of “many of these records”, I could have written “many of these vinyl”, but not “many of these vinyls”. This is an issue that some people feel very strongly about.’

Correspondent, Drowned In Sound, added a snobbery element to the debate: ‘Just a heads-up, so you can stop saying/typing “vinyls”. Cos doing so makes you sound like you buy your music exclusively from Urban Outfitters.’ Given this drive to eliminate ‘vinyls’ I find myself drawn to the opinion of Richard Hershberger, who declares: ‘In the event that I find myself in the midst of this crowd, I will be sure to use “vinyls” as frequently as possible.’ I doubt he’ll be alone. Ray Girvan, for example, will side with him: ‘I was born in 1956, and I recall “vinyls” (= “vinyl records”) to go back decades (I particularly remember the term from New Musical Express in my early teens).’

Google Books confirms early references:

‘While a few audio purists might quibble over the fidelity of some of the vintage vinyls …’ – Time magazine, Volume 84, 1964

‘When the LP development began, Mendelssohn had the albums remade as ten-inch single vinyls’ – The Atlantic, Volume 205, 1960

On this occasion I am definitely happy to let Mr Liberman make the final statement on what appears to be a case of one group of people endeavouring to compel the rest to go along with their own belief, backed up by little evidence: ‘“The plural of vinyl is ‘vinyl’” is an invented “rule”, more or less the opposite of the general patterns in the language, which a convinced minority has promoted to the point where people are tarred and feathered for saying “vinyls”. This is an unusually pure case of peevological emergence, without either tradition or logic on its side, and also (as far as I can tell) without any single authoritative figure behind the idea.’

BUT on August 7 2019, Amazon invited me to buy ‘two vinyl for £30’. Depressing on more than one level.

On a different site, the Steve Hoffman Forum, an American poster named Scarecrow declared: ‘Another huge peeve of mine: I’m a firm believer of “don’t buy unless you intend to keep”. Otherwise leave it for someone who actually values it.’ Petroskf offered: ‘Record buying peeve: people who cry about the death of brick & mortar record shops, but then brag about the deals they scored on Amazon.’ Here’s one from a New York chap which will resonate with many and baffle others, who’ll say ‘Just push ’em back, man!’: ‘I hate when folks don’t push forward facing LPs so they are leaning back in the row they are flipping thru once they are finished.’

Some others: ‘People who buy vinyl to just frame it, or just display.’ To which someone responded: ‘I’m that guy. I buy Rick Griffin covers to frame. Most of the times the music’s not very good but Rick Griffin is one h.e.double.hockeystick (sic) of an artist. His covers look awesome on the wall. However, if you could actually listen to the music on some of his albums you’re a better man than me.’

This one would certainly aggravate most collectors: ‘There is a thrift store near me who write the price ON the jacket in some kind of black crayon like pencil that doesn’t come off. I have found a handful of things there that would be EX-NM if not for the writing.’

Here’s Brooklyn’s Wally Swift with a pet peeve: ‘People that think that they can hold up a box of records forever while they take 20 minutes to inspect or Google each record as they proceed through the box rather than pulling everything that interests them, stepping aside and doing all that. At my Flea Market, flippers and collectors alike are united in their disdain for this and anyone that tries it gets communally harassed and driven away.’

My peeve is a sleeve peeve, wrote ‘rockledge’: ‘I hate it when I am in a hurry to look through a bunch of 33s and I take a disc out to look at the condition, put it back in the sleeve, and the damn sleeve won’t go back into the jacket.’

From yet another interested party on peeves: ‘My peeve is people who claim to be buying the record to listen to but care as much about the condition of the jacket as the record. Who cares about labels and stickers and writing on the cover?’

And Tony ACT in Canberra will resonate with many would-be buyers who are feeling peeved:

‘The word “rare” on eBay when there are 50 or more of them up for sale at any time across the globe.’

Enough vinyl vitriol, already… here’s someone I’m Di-ing to tell you about.