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Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

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Re: Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

#41

Post by bluedino »

csours wrote: post #6
Aardwolf wrote: post #2

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.

There’s already a weird thing in certain cultures in the US - leaving out articles and possessives.

That mike car

Him going there

Re: Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

#42

Post by jgtrosh »

weinzierl wrote: post #11
Aardwolf wrote: post #2

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 (…

I have the same pet peeve with media, especially in french where média is used only as a singular, with les médias for the plural. Médium is exclusively used for ways of expression, and médiums for speaking with the dead. I get that language evolves but this specific evolution really bothers me.

Re: Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

#43

Post by azernik »

amaccuish wrote: post #9
filmor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article explains that "children" is a fancified form of "childer" which matches the German "Kinder". The dative has nothing to do with this.

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.

Re: Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

#44

Post by mc32 »

toast0 wrote: post #29
weinzierl wrote: post #11

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.

In some contexts the plural of datum is datums, making it a bit more complicated than just a collective noun.

Re: Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

#45

Post by posterboy »

_red wrote: post #16
csours wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 ..?

Re: Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

#46

Post by kmm »

gvx wrote: post #14

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.)

And quite in quite a few dialects you'd say "eiers" and "kinders", which is exactly the other kind of "double plural".

Re: Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

#47

Post by posterboy »

kmm wrote: post #36
amaccuish wrote: post #3

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…

I don't *know

Re: Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

#48

Post by thechao »

gizmo686 wrote: post #12
amaccuish wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dual doesn't really help in this case. In a dual system, we would have something like: 1 pant 2 pantx 3+ pants The problem with the words op is describing is that they should, semantically, belong to the category of 1 object, but morphologically (and syntactically) belong to the category of not-1 object. Adding a separate category for 2 objects does not address this.

I occasionally dabble in the spoken-out-loud “glassen” and “panten”. I should do it more.

Re: Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

#49

Post by whatsstolat »

jMyles wrote: post #37
notahacker wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its uneasy coexistence with the usually-technically-valid-and-occasionally-preferred persons is the real problem. Peoples is pretty rare and only for the specific case where it's referring to a plurality of tribes/nations as peoples...

Still - I'm pretty sure I encounter the word "peoples" more frequently than the word "datum." :-)

I see the word datum often in code

Re: Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

#50

Post by timthorn »

toast0 wrote: post #29
weinzierl wrote: post #11

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.

And in the UK, Lego.
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