061212 Neil Bothwick wrote: > On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 17:38:07 +0200, Uwe Thiem wrote: >> I was looking up something in my Oxford dictionary. >> 3. (plural mouses) a small hand-held device >> for controlling a cursor on a VDU screen. > 1) You have waaaaaaayyyyy too much time on your hands :)
It's ok to have a bit of light entertainment during the day (smile). > 2) My OED (2002 edition) says of the computer device "(pl also mouses)" > so they consider both mice and mouses to be correct. I don't know where they got 'mouses' from, but when a native speaker hears the word 'mice', s/he tends to picture an infestation, ie many more than a countable few, so there mb grounds for inventing a different plural for the gadgets. > 3) a dictionary documents the language as used, This may be difficult for German & French natives to grasp, as their languages have strict rules laid down by authorities -- leading to bitter disputes re German punctuation in recent years -- , but the OED, which is an authority, simply reports how people use English, incl how they have used it in the past back to its Dark Ages predecessors. -- ========================,,============================================ SUPPORT ___________//___, Philip Webb : [EMAIL PROTECTED] ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Centre for Urban & Community Studies TRANSIT `-O----------O---' University of Toronto -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
