The plural of "moose" is ...

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/30/2010 08:48 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>  Well, there is one other context where not much distinction between
>singular and plural--meat. Aside from the Big Three that have special
>words--beef, pork, venison (also veal and, perhaps, mutton)

As Wamba observed, the words for the meats come from the Normans,
while the words for the animals come from the Anglo-Saxons.  Their
plurals are mixed:

cows, pigs, but deer, sheep; yet fawns, lambs.

Joel

>--other meats
>(and sea creatures) do not take a plural marker: chicken, duck, goose,
>pheasant, guinea fowl, quail, lamb, goat, fish, lobster, crab, squid,
>cuttlefish, shrimp, kangaroo, squirrel, possum, raccoon, ostrich, emu,
>moose are what's for dinner, even if multiple dishes, species and
>carcasses are being prepared.  Buffalo is a special case (one could
>argue that so are fish and shrimp). But: eggs, ants, grasshoppers,
>pullets, etc. (and calamari, of course). Does it mean that when we talk
>about "meat" we use the adjectival form, cropping the word "meat" or
>something similar (filet, steak)? Or might there be another reason?
>
>     VS-)
>
>On 8/30/2010 7:56 PM, Chris Waigl wrote:
>>On 21 Aug 2010, at 15:03, ronbutters at AOL.COM wrote:
>>>In contexts other than hunting (and/or ducks), does one often/rarely
>>>find a plural without the plural form, as for the word "fish"?  (I
>>>suspect this is virtually impossible to search for via Google.)
>>>
>>>Chris
>>
>>I was reminded of this discussion when I came across this opening
>>sentence of a NYT article today:
>>
>>
>>====
>>Federal inspections of the two Iowa egg farms at the heart of a
>>nationwide recall and salmonella outbreak found widespread safety
>>problems, including barns infested with flies, maggot and rodents,
>>the Food and Drug Administration said Monday.
>>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/business/31eggs.html?_r=1&hp
>>====
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org