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Quote:
So, what is the plural of mongoose? There are definitely more than one running around the island here (and ending up roadkill) and I have no idea how to talk about them other than one at a time. 
I think it would be many mongoose. No?
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Did you ever wonder...?
"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world" -Michael Crichton
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pick your dictionary: I'm partial to the AHD because it gives you both def. and etym. in one groovy swell foop. NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. mon·goos·esAny of various Old World carnivorous mammals of the genus Herpestes and related genera, having a slender agile body and a long tail and noted for the ability to seize and kill venomous snakes. ETYMOLOGY: Marathi mangus, of Dravidian origin. http://www.bartleby.com/61/63/M0386300.html
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
In the computer industry, a pointing device (referred to by the name "mouse") is pluralized as mouses.
I've been in the computer industry for many years and have never heard "mouses" in the wild.
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enthusiast
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...the definition of orient, "to place or arrange so as to face the east" dates to the early 18th century, orientate comes in the mid 19th. Plenty of time to have gotten used to it, IMNSHO.
So, if you spin an Asian person around do they become disoriented?
{Is there a rule here against puns?}
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"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world" -Michael Crichton
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Carpal Tunnel
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I've been in the computer industry for many years and have never heard "mouses" in the wild
I've heard it from the same sort of fussy computer professional who says "these data are", i.e., rarely.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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orientated is correct No! No! No, it is NOT! I refuse to acknowledge that! [stamping foot e] GRR! [teeth on edge e] =========================================================== {Is there a rule here against puns?} Heavens, no, though we have at least one member who has very specific ideas on what constitutes a pun.  =========================================================== Dravidian: I found some interesting ref.'s. name sometimes given to the peoples of S and central India and N Sri Lanka who speak Dravidian languages. They are so called for purely linguistic reasons; the peoples are of varying racial types. It is thought that Dravidian-speaking peoples may have been spread throughout the Indian subcontinent before the invasions of the Aryans. Bartleby Dravidian Language Family
Nothing is known definitely about the origin of the Dravidian language family. Dravidian languages were first recognized as an independent family in 1816 by Francis W. Ellis, a British civil servant. The term Dravidian was first employed by Robert A. Caldwell, who introduced the Sanskrit word dravida (which historically meant Tamil) into his Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages (1856).
At present, speakers of the Dravidian languages are concentrated in the southern portion of India, while speakers of the Indo-Aryan language predominate in the northern portion of the country. A well-established hypothesis is that Dravidian speakers were originally spread across all of India. The Indo-Aryan languages were not native to India, rather they were introduced by Aryan invaders from the north. A form of Dravidian must have been spoken in northern India before the arrival of the Aryans.
NVTC The idea of Aryan and Dravidian races is the product of an unscientific, culturally biased form of thinking that saw race in terms of color. There are scientifically speaking, no such things as Aryan or Dravidian races. hindunet.orgHow I wish maahey was still here. I thought her post about Aryans was wonderful.
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Carpal Tunnel
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As a child I couldn't keep the correct spelling of loose and lose straight until my uncle pointed out that the moose is loose and we are at a loss what to do.
As for mouse:
if the plural of mouse is mice why isn't the plural of spouse spice?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
As for mouse:
if the plural of mouse is mice why isn't the plural of spouse spice?
Humor aside, that's actually an answerable question.
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addict
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This is a timely thread for me, as I've recently had reason to wonder at seemingly unorthodox usage of singular and plural forms for animals. A friend of mine is currently living in Kenya, helping run a nature reserve there. From time to time he sends us news in the form of an e-mail newsletter, telling us all about the reserve and the animals in it. Well, I've noticed he tends to use the singular form to speak about the animals, even when mentioning several of them or a group. He'll write "If they feel threatened, lion will chase you", or "we saw a group of hyena and a herd of elephant".
What's this all about? Is this kind of usage, I don't know, more taxonomic - used to speak biologically about the animal species as opposed to individual animals?
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