Silly sinjin: the plural of operae is operodes!
Daniel
Is Magna Opera anything like the Bolshoi Ballet? 
According to Baldrick, a great work is a Magificent Octopus.
And so we have come full circle.
Is a magnum opera anything like a switchblade symphony?
That’s where “Mack the Knife” comes from, right?
No, that one was not Magnificent but merely Threepenny. 
Not Magnificent, only Munificent? 
Well, since we use opera as a singular, you might want to pick a third example…
Good point. “It should be on all our agendas while in Milan to take in a few operas.”
This is the point at which synonyms are encouraged. “Of all Rossini’s [strike]opera[/strike] musical works, the only ones he is remembered for are his operas.”
“Of all Rossini’s [del]opera[/del] musical works, the only ones he is remembered for are his operas.”
I think you were going for this affect using the [ del ] … [ /del ] code.
Jim
A, you mean hippopteryces, & 2, you obviously are unfamiliar with Gygaxian fantasy.
It’s not so much that he’s unfamiliar with it that irks me; it’s that he seems to think that, because it’s not of high literary value, the way it uses words is insignificant. That’s a bizarre attitude.
Daniel
Yeah! Because normally we can expect prescriptivists to be reasonable and logical in their approach to language.
On the other hand, it’s particularly inconsistent that he’s willing to cling to a half-assed excuse that the source in question isn’t quality literature, and yet I’ve never once seen a prescriptivist back down when I’ve cited Shakespeare, who’s committed just about every one of those prescriptivist bugaboos.
Heh, fair point. I guess I just hadn’t seen that particular lame argument before in quite that form.
Daniel