51–60 of 247 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How long are we going to continually spell things like: knife, night, knight, thought, etc. When you add up the generations of wasted human effort in spelling words in such pointless ways, its mind boggling.
what do you suggest instead: naif, nife, nyve ..?
In Dutch, child/children is kind/kinderen, which is the same double plural. We also have that construction with ei/eieren for egg/eggs. (Regular plural suffixes are -en and -s.)
In the chicken post, which they link to in the article in question, it says: "The OED notes versions in such Germanic languages as Dutch (kieken, kuiken)..." But chicken is kip in Dutch. Maybe they're talking about older versions of the word. Also interesting, perhaps, is the other '-en' that comes to mind: boy/boys, which is jongen/jongens
This only goes so far back. I believe they actually came from German. Oxen in German is Ochsen German still actively uses the -en plural, and all nouns in the dative plural must use -n. So, Ochsen -> Oxen, Maenner -> Men (Slightly unrelated) So if you look at Scotland and Ireland, they've get some really interesting things in their dialects. die "Kirche" in German is a "church", in some dialects in scotland, it's a "…
Worse imho is the "glasses", "pants", "pliers", "scissors", etc thing. Single object with plural name just because it happens to be made of two similar parts. Most objects are made of multiple parts though and they get a singular name just fine. That and the "double u", why not "we"??
I can live with "glasses", "pants", "pliers" and "scissors", but "data" drives me crazy because even native speakers seem to be completely inconsistent when it comes to its number. EDIT: Now that I think about it there is another one that is hard for me, even it I know it is the correct form in English: visa (singular) and visas (plural). In my mother tongue it follows the same pattern as datum and data, it's Visum (…
This only goes so far back. I believe they actually came from German. Oxen in German is Ochsen German still actively uses the -en plural, and all nouns in the dative plural must use -n. So, Ochsen -> Oxen, Maenner -> Men (Slightly unrelated) So if you look at Scotland and Ireland, they've get some really interesting things in their dialects. die "Kirche" in German is a "church", in some dialects in scotland, it's a "…
Curiously, Kinder and children are completely unrelated. Child comes from the Proto-Germanic kelþaz which further came from the Proto-Indo-European stem gel-. On the other hand, "Kind" comes from Proto-Germanic kinþa, which comes from a Proto-Indo-European stem ǵenh₁- meaning "to produce, to give birth", whence also "genesis", "genealogy" and "gonad". German definitely did not cause those curious plurals. We know for…
for reference
cold https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur...
call, cry, (yell?) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur...
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/child from PIE g(')elt- (“womb”)
from Proto-Indo-European gel- (“to ball up, amass”). according to the PGmc page https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...
but
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dolphin
says from δελφύς (delphús, “womb”), which says from
From Proto-Indo-European gʷelbʰ- (“womb”)
I'd offer German "Quälgeister" as modified reflex of the latter. Also "Quell" is synonym for off-spring. Well, spring is a direct translation of "Quelle", i.e. source. Coincidence? Cry fits in, too.
I do not believe the dolphin theory, though. I guess tail-fish is more likely. they have a penis after all, which is way funnier in general, perhaps to funny for low brow scribe type doctors. Ancient Greek δελφίς (delphís) lends itself for φίς (phís) > fish. cf. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fin IMHO
any questions?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can live with "glasses", "pants", "pliers" and "scissors", but "data" drives me crazy because even native speakers seem to be completely inconsistent when it comes to its number. EDIT: Now that I think about it there is another one that is hard for me, even it I know it is the correct form in English: visa (singular) and visas (plural). In my mother tongue it follows the same pattern as datum and data, it's Visum (…
Data is a plural of datum, if you're considering the individual pieces, but it's more commonly used (in my experience as a US native) as a collection singular like sand. Ex the sand has formed a hill, the data has filled the hard drive.
Worse imho is the "glasses", "pants", "pliers", "scissors", etc thing. Single object with plural name just because it happens to be made of two similar parts. Most objects are made of multiple parts though and they get a singular name just fine. That and the "double u", why not "we"??
In other languages, there is a number (dual) that deals with cases like this. It's been dropping from most languages where it's used. In Russian it's mostly gone, but alot of the endings remain. Also lot's of languages when borrowing from English do away with the plural if it's obvious. Like in french, a pair of jeans is just un jean, singular.
Worse imho is the "glasses", "pants", "pliers", "scissors", etc thing. Single object with plural name just because it happens to be made of two similar parts. Most objects are made of multiple parts though and they get a singular name just fine. That and the "double u", why not "we"??
For the sake of being a contrarian, there are two pieces of "glass" in a glasses. I do wonder if simpler english will ever catch on I do wondr if simplr nglsh wil evr cach on.
https://blog.assarbad.net/20090810/das-madchen-why-is-it-gra...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was referring to where the -n came from. After research it seems it came from the old case system, which originally came from german, not sure if it's the dative plural, was just a theory. Here's more about that: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-en#Etymology_2
Read the article; the -en in this particular case arose after the loss of the case system, in a hypercorrection during a period when -en and -s were the two main plural endings.