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Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE:

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 28, 2002, 16:34
And Rosta scripsit:

> I presume "you" means "people in general", in which case their > answer would not count as knowledge, _shend_ not being a generally > known word.
Yes.
> To respond to your point, you would be quite correct if I were > probing a population who don't know the word "ox". But I was > probing a population who do know the word "ox", but it is > sufficiently rare in their experience that they haven't learnt > the irregular plural.
I was merely wondering how you know that for sure. Elicitation will produce the same result in either case.
> BTW, even I myself prefer _oxes_ to _oxen_.
Die, regularizing scum! :-) -- John Cowan <jcowan@...> http://www.reutershealth.com I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen, http://www.ccil.org/~cowan han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith. --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_

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And Rosta <a-rosta@...>