Ununsual plural forms in English
<<Octopus : Octopi>>
No, that's not the standard plural. "Octopus" isn't from the Latin second declension, which is pluralized with -i; "pus" is the ancient Greek word for "foot", with the ancient plural being "podes". So the only standard plural for "octopus" in English is "octopuses".
As with platypuses.....the duck billed variety.
Yes - a single goose meets another goose and they become a couple of geese. Not so with a single mongoose, though - they become a pair of mongooses ;-) Isn't English a fabulously irregular Language....I'm so glad I was born into it - I'd hate to learn it as a furriner....
The english language has so many words that are just plain illogical. Some scholar or entertainer, or just somebody makes up a word(s) waaay back and everyone followed him like sheep without question, apparently. If it weren't for the spelling 'laws' and as long as it's easily decipherable, I wouldn't care if I or anyone chose to use only some of the language/spellings rules.
Something like this for instance: "Did u see how tuf thos mouses wer? Wen they saw the brite lites they bumt into the bric wal so hard, yet stil were able to run quikly out the bac dor."
Al long as people can understand, I'd have no problem with spelling like this. We have such words as knife, brought, cough, castle whistle in which removing the silent letters will not make it another word in the english language with another meaning. Some of those language scholars were truly bored and so made up extra words, extra silent letters and spellings and pronunciations just for the sheer fun of it. We have homonyms like cents, sense, cense and cent, scent, sent, instead of a more distinct spelling and pronunciation for their different meaning.
But I guess I can join in the illogical fun too: moose/meese, fox/foxen, blouse/blice, ....... tye/ties, booth/beeth, oman/omen
"Did u see how tuf thos mouses wer? Wen they saw the brite lites they bumt into the bric wal so hard, yet stil were able to run quikly out the bac dor."
See, that would be incorrect to my pronunciaton. If we all spelled our dialects phonetically, we'd have multitudes of different spelling systems. I'd definitely advocate removing all the silent letters in English, because no one pronounces Knife as ker-naef, or castle as cast-el.
I always like it:
mouse - mice
louse - lice
house - HOUSES
Is blice really the plural for blouse? Not blouses?
You can say "the hairs on her head" or "the hairs on your arm" when you are referring to the individual strands, Laura. There is a time and place for the mass noun, and a time and place for the -s plural. We do use both.
Octopi and cacti are still pretty common plurals for octopus and cactus, Lazar, although they are no longer mandatory.
Regarding fox and foxen, there actually is a variant on that pattern: fox and vixen. From Answers.com, via the American Heritage Dictionary:
"vix·en (vĭk'sən)
n.
A female fox.
A woman regarded as quarrelsome, shrewish, or malicious.
[From dialectal alteration of Middle English fixen, from Old English fyxe.]
WORD HISTORY Why does the word fox begin with f but its female counterpart, vixen, begin with v? The answer lies in English dialects. In the speech of Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall, counties of southern England, words that begin with the voiceless fricative sounds (f) and (s) are pronounced instead with voicing, as (v) and (z). (The local rendering of the county name Somerset, in fact, is “Zomerzet.”) The voicing is due to a Middle English sound change and may have roots even earlier. At least three examples of this dialectal pronunciation have entered standard English: vat, vane, and vixen. The first of these is a variant of an earlier word fat; the pronunciation with (f) was still used in the 19th century before being displaced by the southern pronunciation (văt). Vane, which used to mean “flag,” has a cognate in the German word for “flag,” Fahne, showing the original f.
Vixen, finally, represents the southern pronunciation of a word that goes back to Old English fyxe, the feminine of fox. It was formed by a change in the root vowel of fox and the addition of a suffix –e or –en. Besides being one of the rare southern English dialect forms to have come into standard English, vixen is also the only survival of this type of feminine noun in the modern language."
The vowel change from the O in "fox" to the short I in "vixen" is similar to the vowel change from the O in the singular "woman" to the short I-sound in the plural "women". And I believe "vixen" was originally the plural of the feminine version of fox, although it has since become the singular.
Oi've been down to Zommerset where the zoider apples grow and where the zon zometimes shoines and it be a vairy noice place to be when that 'aahppens and where they aahll speak loike this....actually they don't, to be perefctly honest with no.....not unless they're about 70 plus and have lived in Zommerset all their lives and have supped that zoider in the Fox and Goose pub on a regular basis.
From my own observations in Somerset most people speak standard basic English English RP and the cool young lady drawing the pints of scrumpy cider behind the bar of the pub in Glastonbury spoke exactly like Keira Knightley, and even looked like her in a way. Come to think of it, it may well have been her! Maybe she was moonlighting...... Nah, not really...she was too busy playing the part of the Duchess of Devonshire.
Apart from the apparent "age divide" in the accents down there - a mix of RP with some Estuary and a touch of "posh English English" chucked in for people under 30 and the more "zoider from Zommerset" twang of the old geezers playing shove-ha'penny in the public bar of the Pig and Whistle.
Somerset is an extremely pretty county scenically and I've never seen quite so many thatched cottages with roses growing round the doors and windows anywhere else...well, except perhaps just down the road in Devon....or maybe Herefordshire where my other grandparents now live and where you will find the largest cider mill in the entire world.
No wonder they decided to film "Hot Fuzz" in Somerset....in and around gorgeous Wells, the cathedral city of Somerset although it is quite a small town really - the film was a spoof of course as many of the locals living in the mythical Sandford were made out to be yokels who were way back at the back of the queue when brain cells were handed out at birth. Somerset people have a great sense of humour - after "Hot Fuzz" they needed it.
<<<See, that would be incorrect to my pronunciaton. If we all spelled our dialects phonetically, we'd have multitudes of different spelling systems.>>>
Oh but you need to read my post again. Because I distinctly said, "use only some of the language/spellings rules." Naturally we cannot throw out all the rules. We would still retain the ones that are obviously necessary.
<<<I'd definitely advocate removing all the silent letters in English, because no one pronounces Knife as ker-naef, or castle as cast-el.>>> Yes. That's another rule that should have been thrown out but the early language scholars were amusing themselves or one upping(or downing) each other I guess. LOL.
<<<Is blice really the plural for blouse? Not blouses?>>>
No. I was just joining in the fun of adding 'the forgotten' words that missed 'their' chance of coming into existence despite the english language rules. I was kidding by adding some non words.
<<<Regarding fox and foxen, there actually is a variant on that pattern: fox and vixen>>>
I had no idea till now that vixen means a female fox.
<<<vixen is also the only survival of this type of feminine noun in the modern language>>>
And the scholars then decided, "let's call the male cattle 'bull' and the female cattle 'cow'. And how about calling the male chicken 'rooster' and the female chicken 'hens'. Hey, let's make a whole list of completely different names."
^^Fogot to sign my name again!
<<vixen is also the only survival of this type of feminine noun in the modern language>>>
huh?
what about the word "hen"? (--the masc form "hane" being obsolete)
<<Regarding fox and foxen, there actually is a variant on that pattern: fox and vixen>>
"vixen" has nothing to do with plurality--it's just a variant form (cf. "often" vs. "oft"; "olden" vs "old") of So.ME 'vixe' < OldEng 'fyxe' fem of 'fox' "fox"
it really belongs in the category of words in English that show i-mutation, like strong/strength; food/feed; broad/breadth; proud/pride; etc
Perhaps related to vixen is the modern pair:
Vax and Vaxen (although Vax systems are pretty rare these days).
Sometimes, you also see Unix and Unices.