French to English pied

[BoopsyTroopsy]

You wrote this usage note: "Note: The plural of 'foot' is 'feet'. However, when speaking of a foot as a measurement, it is common, in spoken English, to only use the singular form, e.g., 'He is six foot two' meaning 'He is six feet, two inches tall'."

It would be more correct to say that "foot" in this case is not in fact the singular form of "feet" but an archaic plural form that has nearly but not entirely dropped from usage. Which fact explains why it is used fairly extensively in all forms of measurements (not just height) in rural areas of the English-speaking world

 

[Maître Capello]

I don't know whether it is correct but, regardless, I'm not sure the above needs to be explained in the dictionary.

 

[DrD]

Hello BoopsyTroopsy,

Thank you for getting in touch about this. It's certainly very interesting to know the origins of unusual uses such as this (and I confess that I didn't know this one). However, for the purposes of our dictionary, I'm not sure it would be useful to include it. What we really want to do is make sure our users can find the translations they are looking for and to provide practical usage information for things that might not be very clear or obvious to a non-native speaker. I think the note as it stands will help users to be prepared for encountering both feet and foot as plurals of foot the measurement. Therefore, I won't be making any changes to this entry on this occasion.