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Re: "Archive" vs "Archives"



I haven't had the time to do a full study of this yet (I haven't gotten to
my OED yet), but here's my current understanding of the word based on a
number of other dictionaries and citations.

I've seen a number of etymologies, but all seem to suggest the word entered
English from the middle French archives.

One might argue that archive is a back formation of archives.  Because
English (generally) forms a plural by adding an s, it make sense that the
formation of a singular is by dropping an s.  Hence, archives are more than
one archive.  My sense is that many people object to archive for the same
reason that the singular of crises is not crise.

The acceptance of archive is almost certainly influenced by information
technologists' appropriation of the term to refer to backups.  While it
might be handy to establish archive to refer to data backups and archives to
collections organized with respect to provenance and original order, no one
can be so prescriptive.  The singular form has functional value (as one
poster noted) to distinguish between a single repository and several, or to
distinguish between a single fonds and several.

Nevertheless, the confusion is long-standing.  I was surprised to read in
the World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary (1966) the following usage note under
archives:
    The use of this word in the singular may be  said to largely have
disappeared from English
    in the 1800s, but examples of the singular survive in certain proper
names (Bettman Archive)
    and in literature, especially when reference is made to a particular
document.

The same dictionary has a separate entry for archive, noting that it is
often used to refer to a particular collection of documents, especially of
an individual.

Encarta uses archive, with a note that it is often used in the plural.

However, most dicitionaries I've consulted prefer archives.  Archival
literature prefers archives, but non-archival literature uses the singular.

Regardless, language is formed by use rather than by logic or convention.
What may originally be considered incorrect use may become mainstream and,
hence, acceptable.  My sense is that today either archive or archives is
acceptable, though the former will raise the occasional eyebrow of purists.

Richard Pearce-Moses
 rpm9@mindspring.com

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