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

Andrew Smith scripsit:

> It's not quite ungrammatical, but it certainly sounds somewhat pompous and
> hypercorrect. Rather like someone insisting on using "one die" instead of
> the common "one dice, two dice" [Apologies if you do use die naturally as
> the singular of dice, you never know]
RPG-ers tend to do so, I think ("Roll one four-sided die"), but the
general public doesn't.  Ambrose Bierce, the 19th-century American wit,
attributed this fact to the existence of the prohibitory proverb,
"Never say 'die'".

> Andrew Smith
And so the world now has two known conlangers with the same name!

--
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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