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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
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It's late. I need to be in bed. But I've been meaning to start this thread for over two weeks now and I keep forgetting to.
Are there any plural forms of English nouns that you find interesting or noteworthy? Or perhaps just ones that you have to give yourself a mental nudge to get the forms right?
Linguistics aside, I think it's funny to see that our 'man', singular, becomes 'men', plural. Not so hard. But what is funnier is then we have the singular 'specimen' but the plural 'specimens.' Again, Faldage & gang, this is funny to me on a superficial level. And I imagine that it will be fun to take a look at an interesting working list with my kids this fall.
Do any of you have some interesting plural forms that you could note here?
If you've already done this thread way back when, please let me know and I'll delete this one and look elsewhere. But I really would like to know some of the unusual plural forms you've found interesting--on that superficial level.
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Joined: Jul 2003
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>Do any of you have some interesting plural forms that you could note here?
Well, I like millennia, which seems to be coming under threat from millenniums. It's not so much a prescriptivist thing (I say forums, not fora), as an aesthetic thing. I just think millennia sounds nicer. A google comparison still gives millennia a huge lead, but the ums are gaining, it seems.
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Joined: Jun 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Is there a singular for memorabilia?
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I'll take your word for it. Is it ever used?
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Memorabilium is a backformation from the neuter plural memorabilia. The proper singular is memorabilis. Memorabilium scores about 3:1 over memorabilis on the googlometer. The first 10 hits for memorabilium are all in Latin. Go figure.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks. Has anyone ever said, for ex., that they are going to collect a memorabilium or a memorabilis, though? WW, I haven't meant to ignore your topic and take over your thread--sorry. Connie took the one I was going to put (pppbbttt to you, C!  ), but Faldage's post reminded me of bacillus.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I would suspect that anyone who said something like, "I got another memorabilium today," would have done so humorously.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Meanwhile, one of my favorite exceptional plurals is monies.
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