"corpii" as plural of "corpus"

Robin Hamilton robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM
Wed Mar 10 04:46:10 UTC 2010


> Just for general purposes, what would be the folk-derived plural of
> "corps"? For that matter, what /is/ the plural of corps?
>
>     VS-)

                corpsies

"Little corpsies inside boxes", derived from the well-loved lines of the
folksong:

        Grocers' boxies  /  without topsies
        Sandals were  /  for Clemantine.

(Note the significant deployment of Dipodic Metre by the anonymous author of
the above lines, indicating their folk origin.  The pronounciation of
"boxes" as "boxies" [thus "corpsies"] in the first line quoted is enforced
by the internal pararhyme.)

Robin

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