glee:
In my opinion, trying to use Latin or Greek rules today is pointless and confusing.
I agree with CookingWithGas who said “I pluralize proper names by adding s or es.”
Given that television is a mixture of Latin and Greek, what plural would classicists use?
We** can** end a sentence with a preposition.
Hear! Hear! Using Latin or Greek plural forms for anything other than about five well-established words is pointless and pretentious. Heck, I’m in favor of eliminating most of English’s irregular plurals (what’s wrong with ‘oxes’ or ‘gooses’? Couldn’t we use our brain cells for something more useful than remembering a bunch of random, useless, exceptions to a standard rule?)
Well, I’m not sure I want to really go that far…
Then we’d just have to use more of our brains to remember that we’re not doing geese or oxen anymore. Inertia’s a powerful force.
CookingWithGas:
As noted there is no legislation on this, but I pluralize proper names by adding s or es. A Focus is not a focus. Ford Focuses. Another example: Toronto Maple Leafs (common usage, not my personal preference).
And I always thought it was the Toronto Make Believes.
yabob
August 15, 2019, 5:43pm
24
If you’re going to say “Foci”, you owned an MMVII and an MMVIII …
When you have a charismatic you can make as many charismata as you want, automatically.
Why is the ‘accepted’ plural (the only one ever used) of sheep ----- sheep?
I would say Nos habuerunt Foci if I was speaking Latin.
Or We owned Focuses if I was speaking English.
Because shoop sounds silly.