SELFISHNESS

youths???

Irregular Plurals
Many nouns in English have a plural form either with an s/es ending or without. For example, when is it correct to use youth vs. youths, fish vs. fishes, or hair vs. hairs?

Use youths and hairs when countable.
Example: Three youths were given awards for community service.

If youth is being used collectively, do not add the s.

Example: The youth of today watch less TV but spend more time on the computer.

When youth is used as a collective noun, you may follow it with either a singular or plural verb. I chose the plural verbs watch and spend because I felt that we were using youth in a plural manner here.

https://www.grammarbook.com/blog/singular-vs-plural/plurals-of-odd-words/

Youth or Youths – Which is Correct?
Home » Youth or Youths – Which is Correct?

American culture tends to idolize youth. At this stage of life, the possibilities seem endless, and people are bold, vigorous, and attractive.

The English language itself seems to have a fascination with the word youth; it can be used in at least three different ways—and can even be pluralized to youths. It can be difficult for beginning writers and language learners to sort through all of these options.

What is the Difference Between Youth and Youths?
In this post, I will compare youth vs. youths. I will use each of these words in at least one example sentence, so you can see how it appears in context.

After that, I will advice you on the use of these two words and offer a few alternatives that might avoid their use altogether.

When to Use Youth
youth versus youths What does youth mean? Youth is a noun with several meanings. It can refer to the time in a person’s life before adulthood.

For example,

Even in his youth, Connor was cautious and thoughtful in his approach to taking risks.
What is the plural of youth? Youth can also be a plural noun, where it refers to the young people of a society.

Example,

The youth of the nation rapidly abandoned the popular political party when they realized it was unwilling to act in their interest.
In this usage, youth is a mass noun. It refers to all the young people at once; the same way water can refer to all the water in the sea at once.

Other times, youth is a singular noun, where it refers to a young person, usually a male. The sentence below is an example.

The signature collector cornered an unsuspecting youth in an alleyway and asked whether or not he was a registered voter.
When to Use Youths
definition of youths definition of youth definitionWhat does youths mean? Youths is the plural form of youth in the sense of a singular boy or young man. One might be likely to see this word in police reports or used farcically for comedic value.

Here are some examples,

Police have the three youths in custody on suspicion of vandalism.
“Stop, you unruly youths!” yelled the elderly person at some children who were playing in his yard.
Youths torched and vandalized scores of cars in the Swedish city of Gothenburg and surrounding towns and Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said on Tuesday the disturbances looked organized “almost like a military operation”. –Reuters
The plural form of the sense of a young man is the only proper use of youths. All of the other senses are either already plural or collective nouns.

Remember the Difference: Youths vs. Youth
Youth will almost always work. Youths is only appropriate in the sense of more than one young person, especially a young male. If you need to use the word this way, it will probably be less confusing for your audience to use a more familiar term like teenagers, boys, or young adults instead.

Still, if you must use youths, remember that it’s –s suffix designates it as a plural, much like the –s at the end of boys.

Summary
Is it youths or youth? Youth has many overlapping senses as a noun, all dealing with the period in a person’s life before adulthood.

Youth can refer either to this period of a lifetime, a population of young people, or a specific young man.
Youths is appropriate as the plural of this third sense, but in the interest of clarity, it’s probably better to avoid its use altogether.

https://writingexplained.org/youth-or-youths-correct

What are you doing Baldwin?

Baldwin, you can read the meanings and usage of YOUTH and YOUTHS in COLLINS COBUILD YORK ENGLISH DICTIONARY with examples, and check how l have used it in my poem. Then you will be convinced who is right and who is wrong.

Here is the entry in the Collins dictionary:  
 
youth  
(yuθ)  
Word forms: youths (yuðz)  
1. UNCOUNTABLE NOUN  
Someone's youth is the period of their life during which they are a child, before they are a fully mature adult.  
In my youth my ambition had been to be an inventor.    
Synonyms: immaturity, adolescence, early life, young days   More Synonyms of youth  
2. UNCOUNTABLE NOUN  
Youth is the quality or state of being young.  
The team is now a good mixture of experience and youth.    
Synonyms: youthfulness, youngness, freshness   More Synonyms of youth  
3. COUNTABLE NOUN  
Journalists often refer to young men as youths, especially when they are reporting that the young men have caused trouble.  
A 17-year-old youth was arrested yesterday.    
Synonyms: boy, lad, youngster, kid [informal]   More Synonyms of youth  
4. PLURAL NOUN  
**The youth are young people considered as a group. **
He represents the opinions of the youth of today.    
   
What is shows is that one uses "youths" when one wants to speak of a specific number of young men or women -- and that you are wrong to think otherwise.  
 
BTW,  did you mean _Collins Cobuild York English Usage_?

This is both poorly written and full of question begging assertions.

“I'm sorry for the west to have”

If you are speaking of Europe and America, then you need to capitalize “west”.

“this rapid fall into its death.”

“This rapid fall” is deixis. **Which** rapid fall are you speaking of?

More importantly, the West has not died.  It is still very much alive. So your assertion that it is dead, let alone that death came to it “rapidly,  is question begging, unsubstantiated, and off putting since  in making it, you show that you don’t know what you are talking about

“It had great nations which could rule
the world from furthest east to west.”

It still has great nations in its sway.

“They were the leaders who could build”

the West is not plural, so to use “they” is a solecism.

“the knowledge that advanced the world.
They gave inventions that could stun
the nations of dark ignorance.”

Leaving aside the matter that “inventions” is an abstraction, that you imply that there is such a thing as bright ignorance”,  and the question of what these  inventions are/were, is it true that  these “inventions” have  ceased to exist?  Your syntax makes you make this claim. And was the  ability of these “inventions” to stun the world only a possibility as your use of “could” suggests?  

“All that is caused because their men”

If the antecedent of “that” is the fall to death that you say the West has experienced, then grammar demands that you use the expression “this”, not “that”.

“have wished to have the sex they need”

Are you serious?  The cause of the reputed fall of the West is the desire of Western men for sex?

And if sex is something needed, how does that cause anyone’s fall” I should think that the lack of having one’s need fulfilled would be what causes someone’s disintegration just as not getting all water that one needs to stay alive causes death.

“without protection to their girls
who need safe homes to live and breed.”

Besides the rather astonishing and wholly unsupported claim that getting needed sex causes or results in men not [giving or insuring] the protection of  “their” girls that "their girls (not women, sisters, wives, but girls) need or wish for,  these verses display sexist drivel since the assumption behind them is that Western (let alone all) girls need protection, cannot protect themselves, and that they are so constituted that the way they find their happiness and fulfilment is to be housewives and baby producers.  

“Their people are in full decrease”.

Really?  Leaving aside the question of what you mean by decrease, what is your evince that whatever this decrease is, it is “full”.

“Their youths are coming from abroad
to bring with them Europe's downfall.”

I’ve already commented on your misuse and misunderstanding of the meaning of the word “youths”.  But what’s your evidence that young men from the West are coming to the East (especially in this time of Covid travel restrictions), that when they come to visit or settle in the East, their intention is to bring Europe’s “downfall” with them, and that there are sufficient numbers of them dedicated to this purpose to be effective in bringing it about?.

By the way, absolute faith often brings corruption and destruction.  Look at what happened on 9/11 and what is happening now in Afghanistan - events that are driven by “faith”, and Eastern “faith” as well.

Baldwin,haven't you read this example in COLLINS? ...gangs of youths who broke windows and looted shops... .

Thanks for using selective quotation -- a sure sign that one's assertion is unsustainable.  
Note that the sentence you selectively quote is an illustration of  definition # 3  
.  
 
3. COUNTABLE NOUN    
Journalists often refer to young men as youths, especially when they are reporting that the young men have caused trouble.    
 
So the referent of "youths" is  a particular number of young persons.

Cue the ad hominem response to this as well as a running away from all that I have noted about how poorly the submission above is written by acting as if I never said what I said and/or the labeling of it as "nonsense" without the production of any evidence that anyone should accept that claim as true.

Particular number of young persons and that particular number is who will destroy the western society because of their selfishness. Have you got it now?

I know what you meant to say.  But as was noted in the texts I quoted above, you should have used "youth" to signify this.
 
In any case,  I thought you said that this group of young persons consisted of Westerners who were corrupted by their desire for needed sex, not selfishness,  and were  coming **from** Europe ** (which, according to you,  had **already fallen**) to the East** with the intent to bring about the  **East's** downfall.

Yes, Europe's in massive trouble (UK included).

Thanks for sharing, Joseph-Zenieh.

But is it because European men desire need sex?  And is Europe actually dead?

Thank you very much, Lozzamus, for your read, like, and adding it to your reading list. I highly appreciate that.

Baldwin, don't you notice that the Europeans and Americans are decreasing, and they need the youths of other countries to do their own business? Can these youths love Europe and America as their own youths do? Why are they decreasing? Don't you know the reasons?

Even if it's true -- what is your source for your claim?  -- that   America is "decreasing" (presumably in population -- which is, BTW, hardly clear that America's population was what you were speaking about), that fact  hardly supports your claim that America has been **fully** depleted (let alone of its native population)  which is what you claim when  you assert, as you have done, that a country is  "full decrease".      
    
And I note that you are now claiming that Europe and America are **importing** young men from the East, when previously your (wholly unsubstantiated) claim was that scores of young men from the West are moving with intent into the East.

"Why are they decreasing? Don't you know the reasons?"

It's not because American and European men have desires for needed sex.

Any decrease in the white population in America has to do with with a decline in fertility rates in both men and women.

Bravo! Truth spoke to power. Thanks and hugs, Oral

Isn't it "truth spokEN to power"?  In any case, what "truth" is spoken here and it is done so with poetic felicity?

Thank you very much, dear Oralizer. Indeed, it is the truth of the European countries and North America. I love their civilization, but unfortunately their power and civilization's pendulum is coming down rapidly, thanks to their practice of sex and selfishness.

Do pendulums come down?

Baldwin, before correcting to others, correct your second line. ... and IT IS IT DONE SO.
How can l use felicity when the subject is selfishness. I am not gloating over those people. On the contrary, l pity them. They are wasting the civilization of their fathers, who built it by their blood and sweat.

Leaving aside the question of what you mean by "using felicity",  it is clear that if one has poetic skill, one can indeed write, as poets like Edgar Albert Guest have done, **felicitously** ( in a way that is suitable, right,  or expresses well the intended thought or feeling)   about selfishness  -- that is to say, one can write in such away that readers are not taken out of a submission by poor writing but are enthralled by a poet's use of simile and metaphor and fresh and evocative language that makes readers see what one is trying to say with their eyes shut.  You  have misread me if you think that I was asking about whether you made selfishness charming. I was asking about whether  and where your piece displayed poetic art rather than being what it is -- a series of questionable  declarative prose statements.    
    
And leaving aside my dittography,  are you denying that  "truth spoke to power" is a solecism.

1-Yes, some pendulums  do go up and down if you don't know. If you haven't gone to shops for a long time, do and you will see, but if you want to use the word SWING , use it yourself.
2- l am not following the writings of this or that poet. I am following my heart. Poetry is the language of the heart, beating a felt tune and theme. I don't care about how the poem should be dressed. In this case it will be like a doll, empty of all meaning, but l want it to speak about a worthwhile subject, written in a language imposed by the heart.

"2- l am not following the writings of this or that poet"  
 
And I didn't ask you to.  I pointed out not only that you did not understand what "felicitously" meant with regard to writing, but that other published and recognized poets showed that your claim that one could not write felicitously about such things as selfishness was nonsense,    
   
"I am following my heart."    
   
And unless you express what's in your hear with artfulness,  you won't write anything that's worth reading  or that anyone who is interested in writing well would find helpful in learning how to do so.  
   
"Poetry is the language of the heart, beating a felt tune and theme. "  
   
Here's a passionately felt tune and theme.  According to your statement,  you have no option, unless you are a hypocrite,  but to regard it both as poetry and as good poetry.  
    
The West’s made up of shit  
It’s shit and shit  
and shit piled up on shit.  
Tell me that it’s not    
and I’ll say from my hear  
you’re full of it.  
You ass wipe wanking piece of shit.  
Piss and shit and piss  
I hiss  
and damn you all to hell  
My hear is swelled  
with hatred for your shit.  
   
And don't you dare chastise me for the language that I use.  It  wass imposed upon me by my heart and the passions swirling within it..  
   
But is something that comes from the heart  always , let alone necessarily ,  poetry?  
   
Hardly.    Look at this from Stephen Fry:  
   
"Suppose you had never played the piano in your life.  
 Don’t worry, just lift the lid and express yourself. Pour out your feelings.  
   
 We have all heard children do just that and we have all wanted to treat them with great violence as a result. Yet this is the only instruction we are ever likely to get in the art of writing poetry:  
   
Do music teachers suggest that to children? Do we encourage them to ignore all harmony and rhythm and just make noise?     Listening to music may inspire an extraordinary emotional response,  **but extraordinary emotions are not enough to make music. **  
   
[or poetry]