The plural of "moose" is ...

[Herb Stahlke]

I can manage "Southern Paiutes" or "Comanches," but for some reason
"Cheyennes" sounds odd, and "Sioux" looks like it should already be
plural.  And what would the plural of "Iroquois" be?  Or is this a
case where the same spelling would have two pronunciations?  Obviously
I'm not an Americanist.

Herb

On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 10:04 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: The plural of "moose" is ...
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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