I will never scold someone for using the Italian singular or even say that it’s wrong. My point was that using the Italian plural as singular in English is the dominant form.
As for Latin, the centuries of certain people insisting on using the Latin plurals in English established an additional plural rule in English: /əs/ -> /ai/. And then those same people, or rather their intellectual descendents, become upset when this new rule is applied to all words that end with /əs/ such as the examples you gave (it’s even sometimes applied such words as stewardess). I wish they’d be more consistent.
Who knew that the people of Tatooine spoke a Latin-derived language? They have their sarlacc, the plural of which is sarlacci.
I’ve always believed that “a long time ago in a galaxy far away” actually refers to a futuristic Milky Way galaxy, as seen from even farther in the future and from some other far-off galaxy. Why else would the plural of sarlacc be sarlacci, and why else would there be characters with names like Calrissian?
Perhaps this is a job for Ngram. About 10 years ago I noticed a trend to change actress to actor, but lately it looked to me like it’s stalled or reversed and actress is coming back into use. Comedienne is pretty well extinct, but not actress. I have totally gotten into the habit, however of saying mail carrier exclusively.
I wouldn’t have thought mayoress was even a word, but surprise, the automatic spellchecker didn’t flag it, and it turns out dictionaries have it after all. It’s funny how non-gendered English has included that word all along, while gendered Italian is just now coming up with “sindaca.” But note “Une femme élue à la direction d’une administration municipale était en France habituellement appelée Madame le Maire, mais cet usage tend de plus en plus à évoluer vers Madame la Maire.” In France, a woman elected to run a municipal administration was customarily called Madame le Maire, but this usage is tending more and more to evolve into Madame la Maire. Perhaps languages are only now shuffling such gendered titles around now that women are mayors a lot oftener than formerly. While the Spanish article on mairesse says the word is used in Québec and Switzerland.
Mayoress has existed for probably centuries, as the wife of a mayor. It’s still the first definition for mayoress in some dictionaries, with female mayor as the second definition. I doubt its peak use in the 1820s (Google ngram of mayoress) were references to female mayors.
Some dictionaries (Merriam-Webster, for one) sort their definitions by age rather than commonness. So you can’t go by that to decide which meaning is currently in favor.
We have followed Italy down a dark ally, coshed it over the head and stole Paparazzi, so it’s now a American English word and thus it’s Paparazzi for any gender.
Actually, they do, though people who know the difference are typically only going to be found at opera or ballet performances. In fact, when a M/F duet-type performance ends people usually should bravo followed by brava.