Re: Singlular of "mouses" Was: Re: Negative ordinality

On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 10:07:59PM +0100, Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> I have heard the plural "meeces" for the latter at least once.
> But don't ask me why.
Comes from a cartoon cat who referred to his nemesis-mice as meeces.

How these sorts of words get inflected depends on the way their
retrieved; see Pinker's _Words_and_Rules_, for instance.  "Walkmans"
and "mouses" are related to "flied out" and "Proudfoots".

> And the plural of "box" (computer hardware) is "boxen".
For some.  I sometimes say "boxen", but usually it's "boxes," even though I
do extend the -en plural to other words; I believe the original example
was "Vaxen".  In fact, I use the inflection to make a distinction between
"faxen" (multiple facsimile machines) and "faxes" (multiple facsimile
transmittals).

-Mark