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

Quoting Andrew Smith <andrew.smith20@...>:

> On Fri, 24 May 2002 19:52:56 +0100, And Rosta <a-rosta@...> wrote:
>
> >Nik:
> >> I can't speak for John, but for me "the team are" is as ungrammatical as
> >> "the man are"
> >
> >And Tom Wier & John Cowan, like good North Americans, concur.
> >
> >--And.
>
> As a good Brit, of course "Manchester United is" sounds terrible, and a
> plural agreement is obligatory.
Of course, no North American would likely say that either, but
entirely different reasons. 8)

> 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]
For gamers, I'm given to understand that the distinction "die : dice"
is quite robust.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier          "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers