Lego vs. Legos: Americanism? Regionalism?

[Leslie Decker]

Hi,

I was born in Central Texas in 1976 and my brother and I always played
with /lEgos/.  Plural s, 'short' e.  The pronunciation lego was also
common, though.  As I did not know anything about where they came from,
the lego pronunciation to me was just for people who pronounced egg as
[eg] or [eig].

On another note, we would never say 'play with Barbie' unless perhaps we
were contrasting between our one Barbie and our Ken-doll.  It was always
'play with Barbies' or 'play with Barbie-dolls.' To use Chris' example:
"You still play with Barbies/Barbie-dolls?"

Regards, Leslie

Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> it was the "they" that pointed to a count plural usage (rather than
> mass singular; "some Lego" is consistent with either).
>
> "some Lego" is not, however, consistent with a brand-name usage,
> which would involve a bare-N proper "Lego", as in the Playmobil/
> Barbie/Fischertechnik examples above.
>
> i've been struggling to make it clear that there is not one single
> usage here.  there clearly are differences between british and
> american practices, but it also looks like everybody can use "Lego"
> in more than one way.  (note that "Barbie" has both bare-N uses, as
> above, and clearly count uses, in "a Barbie, several Barbies" -- in
> fact, count uses of more than one type: 'Barbie doll' and 'type of
> Barbie doll', at least.)
>
> i earlier noted instances of "Lego" 'Lego set' and "Lego" 'Lego
> construction'; both are count.  you can also find instances that
> clearly involve "Lego" 'Lego piece' (also count); i think this use is
> american-only.
>
> it's not clear what's going on in any *particular* occurrence of
> "play with Legos" (american) or "play with Lego" (british); it's
> entirely possible that different people are working with different
> analyses, and that one person is working with different analyses on
> different occasions.  "Legos" in "playing with Legos" could be a
> count plural 'Lego pieces' (in which case people would be inclined to
> lower-case it); or it could be a proper noun that's plural in form.
> "Lego" in "playing with Lego" could be an ordinary proper noun
> (taking singular verb and pronoun agreement); or a singular mass
> noun; or a zero-plural count noun 'Lego pieces'.
>
> arnold
>
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>
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org