>>>>>(HINT: "incidences")
>>>>
>>>>Actually, "incidence," not "incidences."
>>>>
>>>>Tamar
>>>
>>>Nah, in common speech one would say "There has been an incidence of ... in the city" or could say "There is/has been incidence ...", fair enough, to denote one occurence, but " ... several incidences".
>>>
>>
>>No, I'm hard pressed to come up with any situation where "incidences" is right. "Incidents" is right if you referring to a number of individual episodes. "Incidence" is right, if you mean the frequency of something.
>>
>>Tamar
>
>I see it as "incidence" is something that exists, such as a disease, whereas "incidents" are things that happen - then are gone, such as a motor bike accident, a stabbing, et al.

From merriam-webster.com:

1 a: angle of incidence b: the arrival of something (as a projectile or a ray of light) at a surface
2 a: an act or the fact or manner of falling upon or affecting : occurrence b: rate of occurrence or influence [a high incidence of crime]

We can ignore #1 for this discussion. Looks like you're thinking of 2a, while to me 2b is the common usage. Wish they had an example for 2a.

Tamar