"croissant" as a zero plural

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>david denison writes to inquire about bill poser's use of "croissant"
>in his latest Language Log posting: ....

*One* possibility is that "croissant" is viewed as an adjective or
attributive. "Croissant" means "crescent", and refers more-or-less to what
is/was conventionally called a crescent roll, so it would not be
unreasonable (whether 'correct' or not) to take "croissant" as short for
"croissant roll" or equivalent.

I do not use a zero plural for "croissant" myself. OTOH, I tend to say
"crescent roll" instead ('correctly' or not): /krw/ just doesn't come so
easily to my English-speaking mouth.

For comparison: "Danish" is perceived as short for "Danish pastry", which I
believe is why it often has a zero plural, e.g., "Try these cheese Danish!"
... which I suppose I _would_ prefer to "Try these cheese Danishes!".

(Another possibility which might be considered: "croissant" is perceived as
'foreign', with the default pluralization of 'foreign' words being taken as
zero, perhaps by analogy with East Asian things such as "gyoza".)

-- Doug Wilson


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