I may be repeating myself at this point

But I'll go ahead and say it anyway: when you have more than one incident, you have incidents.

In my line of work, which involves helpdesk software, an Incident is a specific item. Anytime somebody calls a helpdesk, it is logged in a 'ticket' as an "incident". When you are talking about two or more of them, they are "incidents".

My irritation begins when somebody uses the word "incidences" to refer to multiple incidents. "Incidence" actually refers to how often or the frequency with which something is happening.

For example, "We will examine the incidence of microbial growth in sterile samples" means they are going to look at how often this is happening (frequency). "Incidence" is a singular noun.

To say, "We will examine these incidents of microbial growth in sterile samples" indicates that they will be analyzing each iteration of this event individually. "Incidents" is a plural noun.

But what everybody seems to be saying is, "We will examine these incidences of blah blah...".

I'm not sure if/when "Incidences" is ever needed or correct. Although "Incidence" is a singular noun, it inherently indicates repeated occurances of something, seemingly negating the need for a plural form.

I just heard it on TV, too, on "The First 48 Hours". A cop was talking about multiple murders, or incidents. And he said, "we need to look into why these incidences are happening". Argh.

Anybody want to weigh in on this? I would kind of love it if I was wrong so I could just get over my annoyance at hearing it over and over. But I don't think I am.