"croissant" as a zero plural

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 9/10/06, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
>
> (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".)

I would guess that plural "croissant" is merely a quasi-Gallic
pronunciation spelling for "croissants", since the final -s isn't
pronounced in French. Are there other examples of unpronounced French
-s being rendered as zero pluralization in written English?


--Ben Zimmer

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