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

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_

Reply