plural people

[hpst@earthlink.net]

Fritz and George,

It only becomes confusing if, ie. the Dimaggios (Vince, Dom and Joe) there
is more than famous baseball player with the same last name. In this
particular case there is the old song with the line, "Who's better than his
brother Joe, Dominick Dimaggio." but basically in that case outside of
Boston few people remember Dom.

It becomes more problematic these days when there are so many Latino ball
players with the same last names, ie. the Martinez, etc. In this case you
have to know which one the announcer is referring to which can only be
understood in terms of the context in which the name is used, ie. the good
hitting Martinez, the good fielding Martinez, the Martinez who is a
catcher, etc.

The use of the names Smiths and Jones is not as problematic due to the
difference in terms of the context in which the names are used. I would
only use the sentence "The Smiths are coming over to dinner." in a context
in which my listener knew who the hell the Smiths were and if we had more
than one group of people with the last name Smith I would expect to be
asked in return, "Which Smiths?"

Joneses in turn is generic term which could be substituted for by something
like, "the neighbors."

In terms of baseball I do not find the usage George complains about very
common except when someone says something about  great baseball players of
the past like the Berras, the Musials, the Williams's, the Aparicios, the
Brocks, the Cobbs, etc. in which case it is a sort of collective plural,
and I cannot think off the top of my head any other way that I could phrase
it any better.

The normal usage when an announcer is comparing one baseball player to
another is to suggest that Albert Pujols is as good or not as good a hitter
as Stan Musial was. The plural would then be used as a collective noun when
the sentence might be something like, "The Albert Pujols of this generation
are not as good hitters as the Musials and William's were." Or, god forbid,
"The catchers of this generation are not as good as the Garagiolas once
were."

You can see my St. Louis roots coming through as in terms of the following
sentence: "Todays baseball announcers are not half as good as the Harry
Carays and Jack Bucks were in he old days."

Page Stephens

PS. You could say that the current generation of blues singers are not
nearly as good as the Robert Johnsons, Son Houses, ... were and everyone
who knew anything about thed history of the blues would know what the hell
you were talking about even if they disagreed with your ideas.

> [Original Message]
> From: FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: 4/12/2006 11:56:18 AM
> Subject: Re: plural people
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US>
> Subject:      Re: plural people
>
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>
> George,
> out of curiosity, why does it strike you as being "pointless, inane, and
stupid"?
> What about pluralizing names of people who are not ballplayers, e.g. "The
Smiths are coming to dinner tonight" or that old phrase  'Keep up with the
Joneses"?
> fritz
>
> >>> george.thompson at NYU.EDU 4/12/2006 8:16 AM >>>
> For msome years I have been struck (and annoyed) at the habit of some
> sports broadcasters of pluralizing the last names of ball-players;
> referring to "the diMaggios, the Mantles, the Berras" and so forth.
> It has always struck me as pointless, inane and stupid.  But it turns
> out to have a long history, as in the following:
>
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