If I had to phrase "Load logic", where "loading" has to happen for multiple instances of "logic", how would I do it?

For context, I am a programmer, and writing a method called "loadLogic". That method loads multiple units of logical statements and takes an action on them.

  • Typically, logical statements are called predicates. – Damkerng T. Jan 19 '14 at 11:14
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    No, logical statements are called propositions. Predicates are the part of a proposition that corresponds to the verb (with subject or object) in a clause, or to the function (with arguments) in math. See here for how logic is used in language. – John Lawler Jan 19 '14 at 17:25
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    @John: For Boolean logic, where everything has only two values, predicates and propositions can be viewed as equivalent. A proposition can easily be turned into a predicate which is true if and only if the proposition is true. – Peter Shor Jan 19 '14 at 17:50
  • True in the mathematical sense, which may be sufficient. Not at all true in the application of logic to natural language, where redundancy and ambiguity are design features. – John Lawler Jan 19 '14 at 18:26
  • Why not loadLogicUnits? – James Wood Feb 27 '14 at 20:48

In its entry for logic as used in computing and electronics, the Oxford English Dictionary has this citation from 1968:

He separated the ternary circuits into two sets of binary circuits, one based on a positive logic and the other on a negative one. Then he used translating circuits between the two logics and achieved a true ternary output with the aid of a combining circuit.

If you think your readers will be familiar with this use of the plural, there seems to be no reason not to use it.

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    I agree. Logics is also a standardly used plural in mathematical/philosophical literature, as in the title of Haack’s book Philosophy of Logics. – Daniel Harbour Jan 19 '14 at 17:52

In most usages, logic is an uncountable noun, so load logic could mean either one logical statement or many of them.

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    In the usual plural mass varietal sense of 'many types of logic' (predicate logic, propositional logic, modal logic, quantified logic, ...), logics is perfectly cromulent, just like 15 inks were used in making this drawing. – John Lawler Jan 19 '14 at 17:29
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    Yes, but the OP is using the word as a collective noun for 'multiple units of logical statements', not for a system of logic. Used in that sense the word is analogous to cattle and doesn't have a plural. – Hans Adler Nov 30 '14 at 21:08

I am not able to gather from the scant information you provided, what you meant by logic.

Did you mean ...?

  • Scripts
  • Sequences
  • Declarations
  • Event/State/Entity relationships
  • etc

You might already know that information science borrows from Mathematics to describe multiples of them

  • Sets
  • Collections
  • Lists
  • Trees and their nodes

We could, therefore, say we load sets of logic. We could load logic sets.

Perhaps, set is too general and ambiguous terminology.

In a previous employment, the term recipe was used. We would load recipes.

You might try to be have a little fun, and say you have buckets of logic. Then, your could say bouquets of logic (which was how Mrs Bucket announced her surname was to be pronounced in Keeping Up Appearances).

Your logic loading might actually be loading sequences. Or mesh, grid, partition.

For example, one of these ...

  • public void loadLogic(Sequence a);
  • public void loadLogic(Recipe a);
  • public void loadLogic(Bucket a);
  • public void loadLogic(Bouquet a);
  • public void loadLogic(Node a);
  • public void loadLogic(LogicSet a);
  • public void loadLogic(LogicTree a);
  • public void loadLogic(EventTree a);
  • etc

You should research the terminology that I had sprinkled about in this response to your question, and perhaps one or more of them is appropriate for you.


I am a programmer, and in the context of programming, I only ever use "logic". Program logic is code. There may be a few lines, or tens of thousands of lines. Even though the code may be modularized, or located in separate files, it's all still the application logic.

This is just my opinion and my usage, not a definitive answer. But if "logics" is the answer, then it should always be used, because no program is ever just one line of code.

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    Fair point, but only in the context of a single application or a single coherent unit. But in some cases you need to consider that a single set of code might be achieving something very different than another set. For example, the logic behind an analytics algorithm and the logic behind a piece that renders a cube on the screen. Consider an operating system: During boot up, it loads N number of applications each with their own 'logic'. How does one, in that scenario, pluralize the word logic? – Nandeep Mali Dec 1 '14 at 14:28
  • I came here just to here that, my friend. Upped. – Sнаđошƒаӽ Jun 19 '18 at 5:19

Yes. In it's Greek: logikós. In Latin, the neuter plural is logica.


You can push it; there are many systems of logic (including a whole logic of plurals), so there exist logics. (This is actually supported in Plural Logic). But it is not common, so you need to determine for yourself what you want to name your product and why.

I would say, load logics, but if you want to be more correct, you can use, load logica.

  • Where does the quotation come from? – TimLymington Jan 19 '14 at 10:03
  • @TimLymington - here. – anongoodnurse Jan 19 '14 at 10:10
  • As a mathematical logician I know plenty of different logics and have read many books and papers about them, some of them written by people who insist on using the old-fashioned (at least among British mathematicians) plural formulae instead of formulas. Never once have I heard or read the plural logica outside Latin phrases. – Hans Adler Nov 30 '14 at 21:11

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