When I was writing notes for chapter 2 of "Treasure Island" as part of my studying for my upcoming English exam, I wrote, winter is when the happenings of chapter 2 take place. I quickly scrubbed it out and placed incidents rather than happenings. Then I thought to myself, is it ok to use "happenings" with an "s" instead of incidents. So I went to a thesaurus and checked that "happening" is one of the synonyms of "incident". So my question is can I use "happening" with an "s" as in "happenings" as a synonym for "incident"?
1 Answer
You are unlikely to come across a reputable dictionary not giving just the bland and obvious
- 'happening: something that happens / has happened; an event / occurrence'
definition for the primary sense. And then the 'extravaganza' sense.
This is misleading, not reflecting the restrictions found with the use of 'happening/s'.
Collins Cobuild rightly gives a caveat:
- Happenings are things that happen, often in a way that is unexpected or hard to explain.
There can also be a sense that the events are amusing and/or interesting/exciting. I'd say that this is true for for chapter 2 of "Treasure Island". Yes, 'happenings' works here, while 'incidents' somehow seems out of register for a historical reference. But note that most people would use 'events' here.
In passing, Cobuild classes 'happening/s' as a count noun. I dispute this, as '3/17/a couple of happenings' isn't idiomatic. But it can certainly be used in singular or plural form.
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Thank you Mr.Ashworth. I understood the second paragraph but I didn't quite understand the last one could you please explain it a bit more? (and just a side note, I had an English teacher once who also had Ashworth as his last name. It looks like your family is high up in the English education stands.)– AmroFeb 15, 2021 at 17:43
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Perhaps a good place to start is here. // This answer goes deeper. // And this answer is comprehensive and correspondingly difficult. Feb 15, 2021 at 19:31