Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE: [CONLANG] Optimum number of symbols

Michael Poxon:
> Surely the singular of brethren is brother? Okay, brother used in a
> specifically religious sense, but brother just the same.
I posted an explanation/justification of my claim in a recent reply to
Tom Wier.

> And as far as I know, at least in British English, there is no such
> word as 'oxes'. Oxen is fine.
For many younger British speakers, perhaps a majority, the plural is
_oxes_. This fact can be discovered by asking them. It may not show
up very clearly in a corpus, because those speakers who lack _oxen_
are also those speakers who are unlikely to talk about the ox.

--And.

> Mike
> > My sense is that in contemporary English, _brethren_, like _police_,
> > lacks a singular, and hence does not belong in the above list.  But
> > _brethren_ and __police_ remain irregulars in not taking the -s
> > plural.
> >
> > > > As for the rest of the list, _oxen_ is obsolescent, being replaced
> > > > by _oxes_,
>
>

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