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

And Rosta scripsit:

> Fair point. I don't remember ever checking to make sure. I guess I
> went by the absence of bemused looks in the class, though after
> all the essays I've marked in recent weeks I feel I set too much
> store by the absence of bemused looks.
I did a little googling for "oxes", and found the following things:

- a band called the Oxes (not too surprising)
- the deformed idiom "gore ADJ oxes" (reflecting "whose ox is gored")
- "as clumsy (etc.) as oxes"
- a learned article explaining all three of these by the bogus
  semantic-stretch theory (we don't hear why there is no band
  called the Foots or the Gooses)

--
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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