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Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE: [CONLANG]

From:Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 21, 2002, 20:10
From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@...>
> Muke Tever scripsit: > > > But I think the zero plural can be extended to all fish? > > I don't think so. "Herring", yes, "trout", yes; but "I caught five > shark today"? "The aquarium has six guppy"? I don't think so.
Probably not guppy, but I'm pretty sure I've heard "shark" as plural before. Kind of a hard thing to search for, but in a quick googling I find someone "has caught 35 - yes thirty-five shark in one day" at http://www.mayo-ireland.ie/ConnTel/CT9806/CT980602/Shark.htm (Of course they use "sharks" also a few paragraphs down, so it's hard to say.)
> Of course, there are also mass versions of fish names, referring to > the fish as a food: "I ate shark in San Francisco", but that is > not the same thing at all.
Right. *Muke! -- http://www.frath.net/