curiosa

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:58 PM -0700 9/20/00, Peter A. McGraw wrote (with respect to
Mark's conundrum of whether and how to pluralize "Shiraz"):
>Just don't worry about it.  As they say in Australia, que Shiraz, Shiraz'!
>
Shiraz shoutin', I'd make it Shirazes.  Certainly with less
trepidation than Bordeaux(e)s--that one has to just stay Bordeaux
when there's more than one, but gets pronounced differently:  sing.
[bor'do], pl. [bor'doz].  Or you could always try the "mongoose"
maneuver:  "Buy a Shiraz--in fact, buy two."  It is a nice red wine,
so we should probably work out the plural at some point.

larry

P.S.  Peter's pun is evidently taken--nothing new down under the sun,
it appears:

from http://www.clifty.com/wine/thoughts/quesirah.html:
Que Sirah Syrah Shiraz

Syrah. Petite Sirah. Shiraz. Three wines practically designed to
confuse the consumer. Are they the same? Are they different? And if
so, how? Today we look at the
"common knowledge" about the three wines, plus we put it to the test
with some blind tastings.

[etc. etc.]