I’ve asked around and you are absolutely correct. I’ve just never heard the phrase before. I would, myself, use something like ‘both sets of staff’
You live and learn.
Much of the older Electrical Engineering, and Ham Radio literature will use “antennae” to discribe a plurality of electromagnetic radiators. Admittedly “antennas” seems to be more the american fashion today, though it grates with me. I seem to recall UK publications still tend toward “Antennae”.
In geometry and optics: focus/foci
At a Ford dealer: Focus/Focuses (ick!)
What about
"General Smith’s staff had the cool red uniforms and the latest equipment, but General Jones’ staff was more experienced. When it was needed, both staffs had what it took to get the job done.
Index -> Indexes (documents)
Index -> Indices (mathematical exponents, time-series of prices)
Some of my colleagues use a singular form “indice” (pronounced in-di-say) as a back-formation from “indices”.
beau (a boyfriend) -> beaux
bow (like on a present) -> bows
One weird one from Wikipedia refers to Atlas, the Greek hero, and atlas, a book of maps (which derives from the name of the hero). Statues of Atlas are referred to as Atlantes while books of maps are atlases.
I have to wonder if you’re a member of my corporation on Eve Online, because in a discussion today that started about the correct plural of “Noctis” (a name of a ship in the game), I mentioned those words and their interesting plurals. Or perhaps you’re mathematically inclined and already encountered those two plurals and mentally filed them, just like I did myself.
One could potentially find more by considering English words ending in -is and looking for when the word formed by adding -e to that stem is also an English noun that can be pluralized.
I don’t pronounce the plurals the same though (I’m in the US) so “axes” in the following sentences would be pronounced differently by me:
“How many axes do we have? We need to get these trees chopped down fast.” (axes has the same last syllable as “rezzes”)
“I need to be able to rotate the object along all three axes.” (axes has the same last syllable as “peas”)
Update: I see you don’t pronounce them the same either. Sorry, I didn’t notice that.
I think I’ve heard “parenthesey” for one parenthesis.
Not in some parts of the US.
you - y’all.
Lots of words have both a countable and an uncountable form; sometimes the meaning is completely different, sometimes it’s similar. Not sure if that counts for you - there’s no plural form for the uncountable versions, but they can be used to refer to plurals.
Grass - uncountable for that green stuff on the lawn.
Grasses - varieties of grass.
Grasses - people who tattle to the police.
That one works, since you’re talking about two example of the uncountable noun staff. Ximenean’s example wouldn’t work because he’s talking about two individual members of staff. I mean, you’d always say ‘there were two members of staff on the shop floor’ not ‘there were two staffs on the shop floor,’ surely?
Well, a homonym has to be a homograph as well as a homophone.
No I’m not, I’m talking about “the staff of Acme Inc. and the staff of XYZ Inc”.
IMHO indices is the correct form for both.
‘Staffs’ instinctually looks wrong to me, but I have seen it used as a category in some newspaper small ads, advertising vacancies in hotel and catering.
There you’re not pluralizing “staff,” you’re pluralizing “member.”
A staff is a group of workers, so several groups of workers would be staffs.
Ah, sorry, I misread you then. Your example does work, in that case.
Recruitment agencies make tons and tons of mistakes.
Mind you, best mistake I ever saw was someone advertising their ‘proofreding’ services.