The plural of "moose" is ...

[Mark Mandel]

With nationality names it varies, partly with form: e.g.,
 the Italians, and other ___-ans; an Italian
 the Japanese, and other ___-ese; ?a Japanese (suddenly I feel uncertain
about that)
 the French; a Frenchman/-woman
 the Basques; a Basque

m a m

On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 9:38 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:

> And names of ethnic groups.  Terrence Kaufman argues in his chapter on
> North American languages in the Atlas of the World's Languages that an
> ethnonym should be a plural when referring to the people rather than
> the language, so, the Southern Paiutes, not the Southern Paiute.   I
> don't know if this is a strictly American usage.  In African studies
> it's common to refer to peoples as the Yoruba, the Hausa, the Mende,
> etc.  With Bantu languages the plural prefix is often used, as in the
> BaGanda, WaSwahili, etc., but the Xhosa or the Shona are also widely
> used.
>
> Herb
>
> On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 4:22 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: The plural of "moose" is ...
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > And fish.
> >
> > Relatedly, small fruits and vegetables of which one would be too small a
> > portion: berries, beans*, peas (originally a mass noun "pease"), and so
> on.
> >
> > *  including lima beans and string beans, which are countable, as well as
> > baked beans, which swim in their own glop and are less clearly so
> >
> >  - "More peas/beans, please."
> >
> >  - "How (much/*many)?  (
> >  - "Is this enough? / * Are these enough?)"
> >
> > -- where the stars indicate unacceptability; let someone else decide
> whether
> > to call the issue a grammatical one.
> >
> > m a m
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 8:48 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com
> >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)--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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> >>
> >
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> >
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