"The intricates of ..."

[Stefan Ram]

One wording that I have learned by example from native
speakers is: »the intricates of ...«. Recently, I decided to
look up this word »intricates« in a dictionary and found
that there is no noun »intricate«, but only an adjective
»intricate« and a noun »intricateness«. But, from an
adjective »intricate«, I can not derive a wording such as
»the intricates of ...«.

[musika]

Post by Stefan Ram
One wording that I have learned by example from native
speakers is: »the intricates of ...«. Recently, I decided to
look up this word »intricates« in a dictionary and found
that there is no noun »intricate«, but only an adjective
»intricate« and a noun »intricateness«. But, from an
adjective »intricate«, I can not derive a wording such as
»the intricates of ...«.

Wrong word. It's "intricacies of..."
Intricacy - the quality of being intricate.

[Mark Brader]

Post by musika
Intricacy - the quality of being intricate.

Wrong sense. In the plural, "intricacies", it can mean "intricate details",
and that's what Stefan is thinking of. See:

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/intricacy

[John Holmes]

Post by Stefan Ram
One wording that I have learned by example from native
speakers is: »the intricates of ...«. Recently, I decided to
look up this word »intricates« in a dictionary and found
that there is no noun »intricate«, but only an adjective
»intricate« and a noun »intricateness«. But, from an
adjective »intricate«, I can not derive a wording such as
»the intricates of ...«.

Try "intricacies". Perhaps what you first saw was a typo for that.

[Stan Brown]

Post by Stefan Ram
One wording that I have learned by example from native
speakers is: »the intricates of ...«.

I find it quite difficult to believe that you have ever hear any such
thing from a native speaker. The invariable phrase is "the
intricacies of".

[Joe Fineman]

Post by Stan Brown

Post by Stefan Ram
»the intricates of ...«.

I find it quite difficult to believe that you have ever hear any such
thing from a native speaker. The invariable phrase is "the
intricacies of".

I can easily imagine one of Mrs Malaprop's many disciples saying
"intricates"; it's no better & no worse than "incidences" for
"incidents", etc., etc.

[Stefan Ram]

Post by Stan Brown

Post by Stefan Ram
One wording that I have learned by example from native
speakers is: »the intricates of ...«.

I find it quite difficult to believe that you have ever hear any such
thing from a native speaker. The invariable phrase is "the
intricacies of".

I remembered it that way. Before I posted the OP to this
newsgroup, I used a fulltext Web search engine to verify
my memory. Indeed, I found several hits for »the intricates of«,
so I thought that my memory was right.

Let me just take out two examples: 1.)

»With insight and intelligence, Sue Miller explores
the intricates of family and love«

from a Web page of »HarperCollins Publishers«, and 2.)

»when people have talked to him about the intricates of this«

can be found on a Web page of the BBC, where this wording
is attributed to a Peter Hennessy, Professor of
Contemporary History at Queen Mary and Westfield College,
University of London.

Of course, from now on, I will use only: »the intricacies of«.