Computer Mice or Mouses?

[Garson O'Toole]

Oxford dictionaries online has an entry for mouse that includes the
following note on usage.

[Begin excerpt]
Is the plural of mouse in the computing sense mice or mouses? People
often feel that this sense needs its own distinctive plural, but in
fact the ordinary plural mice is commoner, and the first recorded use
of the term in the plural (1984) is mice.
[End excerpt]

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mouse


While searching I found a fun but fallacious acronymic origin for
mouse: manually-operated user-select equipment.

http://painintheenglish.com/case/534/


On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 1:18 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Computer Mice or Mouses?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Does anybody actually use the whole phrase "computer mouses"?
>
> Oh. Google says that 169,000 people do, more or less. And that AHD endorses
> both.
>
> Shame, shame on AHD.
>
> So it looks like Sallie's on her own.
>
> JL
>
> On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrot=
> e:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Computer Mice or Mouses?
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> My quick take is that both are used. People like saying "mouses" because
>> it almost seems sarcastic--and distinct from live mice.
>>
>> But I have another mouse-related issue.
>>
>> Amazingly enough, verbs "mouse" and "mouse over" are in the OED. But
>> neither one corresponds to the use of "mouse over" that appears, for
>> example, on LanguageLog when one of the bloggers posts a reduced image
>> of a cartoon.
>>
>> Here are the two relevant entries in the OED.
>>
>> > 3.=EF=BF=BD=E2=82=AC b. /intr./ /U.S./ to mouse over: to pore over (a b=
> ook). /Obs./
>> > 1808 /Salmagundi/ 25 Jan. 426 With ... a table full of books before
>> > me, to mouse over them alternately.
>> > 1864 B. Taylor in /Life & Lett./ (1884) II. xvii. 422, I have Little
>> > and Brown's 'British Poets' complete now, so you'll have wherewithal
>> > to mouse over.
>> > 1889 F. E. Gretton /Memory's Harkback/ 137 He was ... always 'mousing'
>> > over books.
>>
>> and
>>
>> > 6. /intr./ /Computing/. To use a mouse to control an application,
>> > browse through data, etc. Usually with an adverb, esp. /around/. Also
>> > /trans./In quot. 1983, a punning reference to the redesign of a
>> > computer to incorporate a mouse.
>> > 1981 /ACM SIGSOC Bull/ *13* 118 Overviews are selected by
>> > 'mousing'=E2=80=A5items on a menu.
>> > 1983 /InfoWorld/ 31 Oct. 29/1 Apple is mousing around with the II e.
>> > 1990 /Computer Buyer's Guide & Handbk./ *8* vi. 26/2 We were soon
>> > zipping through the lessons with a minimum of mousing around.
>> > 1994 /Microsoft Systems Jrnl./ Aug. 5/2 Moving the mouse over it makes
>> > the taskbar appear; mousing away makes it vanish=E2=80=94no clicks nece=
> ssary.
>>
>> So, "mouse over" does not have a computer-related description and
>> "mouse" only refers to physically moving the mouse.
>>
>> The "mouse over" meaning that I am referring to is neither--to mouse
>> over means to use the mouse /particularly/ to place the cursor over a
>> specific position, link, button or image. The relevant act is moving the
>> cursor, not so much moving a mouse. And, of course, this can be
>> accomplished by non-mouse devices--such as trackballs (a.k.a. trackball
>> mouses) and trackpads (which are only known as mouses when it come to
>> the relevant Windows drivers).
>>
>> VS-)
>>
>> On 3/21/2012 12:41 PM, Sallie Lemons wrote:
>> > Appreciate the humor but it really doesn't answer the question.
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>>
>
>
>
> --=20
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