As you all know, our ancient and beloved English language is filled with plurals from by-gone years and other languages that simply do not follow the “tack an s on the end” rule that normal plurals do. For example, the plural of “mouse” is “mice,” the plural of “ox” is “oxen,” the plural of “index” is “indices,” the plural of “foot” is “feet,” the plural of “woman” is “women” – et cetera. (Which, by the way, is the plural of “et ceterum.”)
But in my not-so-humble opinion, this list of oddball plurals is too small and sporadic. It doesn’t go nearly far enough. I propose that our language should be spiced up with more of these oddball plurals.
In fact, I’ve made up a partial list. Here are some of the the words that, as any sane and rational person would obviously agree, should have better plurals:
This word in the singular ...should be pluralized as:
------------------------- ---------------------------
blouse blice
house hice
ouse ice
ax axen
fax faxen
light bulb light bulbim
span spen
pan pen
motor bus motor bi
boot beet
Kleenex Kleenices
Spandex Spandices
asylum asyla
drum dra
bum ba
bra brae
airplane throat-warbler mangrove
Note: not all of these are original. I am not the only one who has Seen The Light when it comes to the need for better plurals in English. Spread the word, pilgrims!
The great thing about Shelly Berman was the way he wove his observations into the stories he was telling. So many of todays comics would try it as a stand alone ‘bit’.
Can we turn this into a Shelly Berman appreciation thread? I was introduced to him as a 12 year old when my parents gave me a bunch of comedy records they had found at a garage sale (or from friends or something). I only wish that Bob Newhart records had also been included…although the Stan Freberg and Nichols and May were also a breath of fresh air.
So if the plural of “index” is “indices” and of “apex” is “apices” and “axis” is “axes”, then should the plural of “ibex” be “ibices”? If you have two friends named “Alex” do they undergo a sex change and becomes “Alices”?
I like the old TV commercia that made the plural of “Stewardess” into “stewardi”.
First they suggested I start referring to blouses as blice and I did not speak out because I wear shirts. Then they told me motor buses will now be know as motor bi, and again I did nothing because I drive a car. Then they told me we were converting to the metric system and I had to start buying 45x90mm studs to build hice - and I got really pissed off!
Latin’s one of those languages–actually probably the only one–that is pronounced radically different depending on whether you’re (a) a priest, or (b) a high school student reciting “Kickero”, or (c) a doctor or lawyer using completely anglicized pronunciation.
A doctor would say one “one pee-nis, two pee-knees”. The student would say something roughly like “one pey-nis, two pey-neys”.
It’s interesting how little talk we hear of penes in the plural. I guess a penis is one of those things we tend to consider one at a time, never collectively.
