Computer Mice or Mouses?

[Sallie Lemons]

Thank you....



-----Original Message-----
From: Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
To: ADS-L <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wed, Mar 21, 2012 1:08 pm
Subject: Re: Computer Mice or Mouses?


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ender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
oster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
ubject:      Re: Computer Mice or Mouses?
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My quick take is that both are used. People like saying "mouses" because
t 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
either one corresponds to the use of "mouse over" that appears, for
xample, on LanguageLog when one of the bloggers posts a reduced image
f a cartoon.
Here are the two relevant entries in the OED.
> 3.� b. /intr./ /U.S./ to mouse over: to pore over (a book). /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'‥items 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—no clicks necessary.
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
ver means to use the mouse /particularly/ to place the cursor over a
pecific position, link, button or image. The relevant act is moving the
ursor, not so much moving a mouse. And, of course, this can be
ccomplished by non-mouse devices--such as trackballs (a.k.a. trackball
ouses) and trackpads (which are only known as mouses when it come to
he 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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