The plural of "moose" is ...

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:55 AM -0400 8/19/10, Ronald Butters wrote:
>*They were hunting frog.
>*They were hunting cow.
>*They were hunting mammal.
>
>I think that, however,
>
>"They were hunting duck" is OK.
>
I tried "they were hunting duck(s)" and "we were hunting duck(s)" but
the number of hits for any of these was too small to allow
conclusions.  But FWIW:

"was/were hunting ducks"  160
"was/were hunting duck"     24

Some of the latter have the conjunction "hunting duck and geese";
perhaps the irregular plural makes a difference.  In fact:

"was/were hunting geese"   83
"was/were hunting goose"     3

Even more striking, not surprisingly, is "bird".  All the hits on
"was/were hunting bird" involve some guy named Bird, one example of
"hunting bird dogs" ("they were hunting bird dogs and so were always
kept in a kennel"), and a couple of the form "hunting bird hunting".

LH

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