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

Joe (Joe [joe@WANTAGE.COM]):
> > 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.
>
> No, they're in a minority.  To me, 'Oxes' sounds strange, maybe a thing a
> young child would say.  I haven't heard anyone say 'oxes'
Joe, if you have actually surveyed younger British speakers, then give
me details. If you haven't, then hold your peace.

As was evident from what I said, it is not surprising that you haven't
heard people saying 'oxes'. If you are a young person living in Britain,
then many of these people you haven't heard saying 'oxes' are also
people you haven't heard saying 'ox'. This is because they don't talk
about them. But if you ask them what the plural is, that's when you'll
get 'oxes' as the answer.

--And.

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