Reference for the proper pluralisation of the word "scrip"

November 30, 2021 8:21 AM

I thought the word "scrip" (as in company scrip) was both a counted and uncounted noun. That it's counted when you're referring to varieties ("there were many different scrips in common use at the time") and uncounted when referring to quantity ("she paid with scrip"). Much like the difference between "the butcher sells many meats" and "the butcher sells a lot of meat". But I can't for the life of me find a good reference for this.

When I looked for a solid reference on this point I'm coming up blank. None of the online dictionaries I usually use are helpful in clarifying this point. Wiktionary goes far enough to describe scrip as both a counted and uncounted noun, but doesn't specify the contexts in which it is which (and doesn't have a reference anyway).

I'd appreciate if anybody could point me to a good reference for this, even if it shows I'm in the wrong.

posted by Lorc to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

A Google Books search limited to the 19th century turns up a decent number of examples.
posted by jedicus at 8:40 AM on November 30, 2021

Oxford has this:

1. A provisional certificate of money subscribed to a bank or company, entitling the holder to a formal certificate and dividends.
‘Once the merger was announced, the scrip registered a slight increase and was trading at 277.80, up by Rs 15, but overall banking scrips were still trading at a low.’

1.1 Scrip certificates collectively.
‘The position differs where the security given by the debtor comprises marketable (viz. negotiable) securities, such as bearer bonds, share warrants, scrip, or exchequer bills.’

This would seem to support your supposition.
posted by slkinsey at 8:46 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

In case anyone else was going to try them: I've looked in my Shorter Oxford and in my Chambers dictionary app, and neither is any help on the subject.

Lexico.com, "Powered by Oxford", notes that scrip, "scrip certificates collectively", is a mass noun, as is an alternative US meaning, "paper money in amounts of less than a dollar", but I'm not sure that either of these is exactly the meaning you were thinking of.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:47 AM on November 30, 2021

This entry from the Cambridge English Dictionary has examples in the form you want ("In the early years, residents were paid for their labor in company scrip"), but doesn't explicitly mention countability. I am surprised by the vagueness of the big online dictionaries.

If there's no definitive reference posted here I'll see if I still have access to the OED, though it might take a while.
posted by trig at 9:17 AM on November 30, 2021

OED:

scrip, n.3
II. As a mass noun. Promissory notes, currency, and related senses.
5. Originally and chiefly U.S.
a. Any of various types of promissory note, voucher, etc., used in lieu of legal tender or currency; substitute currency; local or private currency.
b. spec. Tokens or vouchers given as payment to employees and redeemable at a company store. Now historical.
posted by zamboni at 10:33 AM on November 30, 2021

Best answer: Here are the key bits from the OED (I trimmed out some header stuff as well as all the other definitions of "scrip"):

scrip, n.3

II. As a mass noun. Promissory notes, currency, and related senses.
5. Originally and chiefly U.S.

a. Any of various types of promissory note, voucher, etc., used in lieu of legal tender or currency; substitute currency; local or private currency.

1818 Daily National Intelligencer (Washington) 16 Apr. He made the deposit in ‘effective specie’, which the same Treasury owed him, viz.: in Libramientoes, i.e. Treasury Notes, or Cash Scrip.
1875 S. P. Bates Battle of Gettysburg i. 24 Doubtless our merchants and druggists would have preferred greenbacks to Confederate scrip.
1891 Treasury Dept.: Rep. Internal Commerce 860 in U.S. Congress. Serial Set (51st Congr., 2nd Sess.: House of Representatives Executive Doc. 6, Pt. 2) XXIV They [sc. the Mormons] never had much else but their local scrip for currency among themselves.
1934 F. A. O. Schwarz Christmas Catal. Monopoly game..‘Monopoly’ consists of..necessary houses and hotels, title cards for every property and sufficient scrip for four to nine players.
1971 N.Y. Times 25 Apr. 69/4 Four big boxes of scrip, issued by the Western and Atlantic Railroad in 1862 to give change to customers without the exact fare, have been discovered.
2001 B. Lietaer Future of Money 43 Frequent-flyer miles or Internet money are just early examples of corporate scrip.

b. spec. Tokens or vouchers given as payment to employees and redeemable at a company store. Now historical.

1874 1st Ann. Rep. Bureau Statistics Labor & Agric. Pennsylvania 1872–3 486 The worker..can at all times get the company's store scrip, provided they are indebted to him to the amount he asks for; he therefore takes it and uses it to buy anything he requires.
1893 Frank Leslie's Pop. Monthly Oct. 488/2 Each laborer..has received payment in company scrip... The scrip is receivable for material from the company's store-house.
1943 S. Menefee Assignment: U.S.A. iii. ix. 211 The workers are no longer paid in ‘scrip’ usable only in the company stores.
2000 High Country News 31 July 10/1 Up until World War II, miners here were paid in scrip, company money with which they bought food and other supplies at the company store.

The other, related definitions of scrip in this OED entry refer to land-scrip, Metis scrip, and denominations of paper money less than a dollar. There's also an entry for scrip (n.4) that specifies it as a count noun, but it's slightly different than traditional company scrip:

scrip, n.4
1. Stock Market.

a. As a count noun: a receipt for a share or shares in a loan or a commercial undertaking; a share certificate; (also) a stock, a share. More commonly as a mass noun: share certificates or shares collectively.
Use as a count noun is now mainly South Asian and South-East Asian.

[...]

b. Any of the various types of stock issued by the British government in exchange for instalments of a loan. Usually as a mass noun. Obsolete.

[...]

c. As a mass noun: (originally) provisional certificates of money subscribed to a bank or company, entitling the holder to formal share certificates upon completion of the necessary payments; (now usually) certificates for fractional shares, a set of which may be exchanged for a full share. Also occasionally as a count noun: one of these certificates. Cf. scrip certificate n. at Compounds 2.

posted by mhum at 10:40 AM on November 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

To expand on the prior answers, in case it helps, “mass noun” means what you called uncounted noun.
posted by rustcellar at 4:49 PM on November 30, 2021