Well, in English as it is spoken and written here in the States, we create or modify words at the drop of a hat. (Yes, I am aware that many in the British Isles claim that English hasn't been spoken here for years. I don't care.) That's why we write words such as "color", "humor", etc. as we do. It was an attempt by Daniel Webster to remove useless vowels from the language. He shouldn't have stopped with the "Us". "Dead" should be "ded". The "a" is entirely unnecessary! We write words such as "center", "theater", etc. as we do in an attempt to remove the effects of England's national dyslexia from our vocabulary. Being that we (on this side of the pond) make up words as we like, LXen as a reference to a large population of LX cameras is perfectly acceptable. Since this is a word associated with a profession, it's acceptance can be accelerated if many/most in the photographic profession decide to use it. Writers of dictionaries usually accept the common jargon of a profession or trade as valid.
Har! Regards, Bob... > From: Ryan Lee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Very impressive Bob. I'll give you an A for that choice answer :) I'm > probably going to print it out for a few rereads too, because somewhere > around 'declensions' I started seeing pretty colours. I'll > endeavour to get > it in though, so that your efforts won't have gone to waste, plus the fact > that back in the once upon a time (some say still) the guy who made other > people see pretty colours was pretty popular. > > Anyhow, yep I know what an Ibex is, I think that one was in there > in jest. I > thought Ibii had a decent shot, given a-platypus-two-platypi (I think). > About ibes.. sounds almost plausible, but sounds a bit too technical or > scientific to be popularly adopted even if it was actually right. > I suppose > if one of them was called an Iboose, then two of them would indeed be > Ibeese, but let's just leave that one alone. > > To bring some kind of topical integrity back into the thread, I always > thought the way Pentax names their cameras seems a bit arbitrary. Like if > one wanted to pick up an old body, just judging by the names, you couldn't > really tell which one beat which. You could say that about the MZ series > too, like the uninitiated could be forgiven for thinking that an > MZ-7 is the > beefed up version of the mediocre MZ-6, which was an incredible > improvement > from the primitive MZ-3. It doesn't show much ambition (counting down) > because even if they did make an MZ-2 and an MZ-1, and perhaps > even the cool > MZ-0, what's next? And another thing (that we've all talked about before, > what kind of stupid name is *ist? I reckon it was coined by a Gen-Xer who > figured he/she was being contemporary (while cleverly selling the idea by > talking about * lenses and tradition!), while not realising that it would > hinder the reflex Gen-Z (or whichever generation they're at now) > activity of > sourcing information via search engines. I just did a global > search on Yahoo > (AU) for *ist and as expected, the first 10 results don't smell > Pentax, and > I'm guessing the next few don't either. > > If any Pentax Corp lurker is around reading this, here's a recommendation > for you to pass on to management. Here we've got a decent sized > focus group, > very eager, very helpful, *very* useful. Sponsor/subsidise i.e fix us up > with some of your beautiful equipment, and we'll show you what you need to > do to get up there to play wiv the big boys ;) > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bob Walkden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > Wednesday, October 29, 2003, 10:01:35 AM, you wrote: > > > > > Going OT here, but always wanted to be sure what the plural > of ibis was. > > > I've heard ibises, ibes, ibii, ibex or just plain ibis etc.. As such > I've > > > resorted to an-apple-two-apples, an-ibis-two-birds.. > > > > the New Oxford dictionary gives you a choice of one: ibises. > > > > Ibex is a different animal altogether - a goat, not a bird. The > > English plural is 'ibexes'. > > > > You can often treat words denoting animals as mass nouns, particular > > when you're eating the animals in question. For instance, you could > > serve ibex or ibis to 100 or so of your closest friends. If the > > proportions were not miserly this would constitute more than one ibex > > or ibis. > > > > The other possibilities you list - ibes, ibii - are just confusion. My > > guess is that in normal speech most people would say 'ibises'. > > However, if they're writing, or being particularly aware of what they > > say, they may make an effort to be 'correct' or to sound educated. > > This leads people to make gross mistakes such as 'ibii', 'stati', > > 'statii' (or recently 'virii'). Relatively few people know Latin, but > > are familiar with words like radius/radii, focus/foci from school > > mathematics, they use analogy to try and form the plural of > similar words, > > but often succeed only in failing. This is a hangover from 16th century > England > > when the use of Latin loan-words was taken to be a sign of social > superiority, > > and there was a lot of ostentatious use of such words, called 'inkhorn > terms' > > because of the association of education and inkhorns (ink wells). > > > > In Latin nouns are classified into 5 declensions, and some of the > > declensions are further sub-divided into groups. These declensions and > > groups reflect the different forms the words take according to their > function > > in a clause. In particular, the plural forms are different in these > declensions. > > Typically you can recognise the declension of a noun from the way the > > nominative singular ends. So normally a word ending in -a is 1st > declension > > (plural -ae), -us is 2nd declension (plural -i). The most common 3rd > declension > > ending is -is, plural -es, but the 3rd declension has several > sub-categories. > > > > Confusingly for generations of schoolboys, the nominative singular in > > the 4th decelension is -us, like the 2nd declension, but the > > nominative plural is also -us, but with a long 'u'. > > > > Virus, focus and radius are 2nd declension, so the Latin nominative > > plurals are viri (NOT 'virii'), foci (NOT 'focii') and radii (yes!) > respectively. > > > > But status is 4th declension, so the Latin nominative plural is also > > status - NOT 'stati' or 'statii'. > > > > Ibis is 3rd declension, group I, feminine. The nominative plural is > > ibes. > > > > Ibex and index are (I think) 3rd declension group II, so the nominative > > plurals are respectively ibices and indices. > > > > These are all common loan words in English. But remember, we're > > speaking English, not Latin. We don't have to conform to Latin > > grammar, and indeed in most cases (pun intended) we don't. Latin nouns > > have case endings. So if we wanted to talk about something belonging > > to several ibises, say their wings, we would say 'alae ibium', 'ibium' > > being the genitive plural. We never find that the people who insist on > > the 'correct plural' also insist on this equally 'correct' > plural. That's > > because we speak English, not Latin. > > > > English is very simple in its construction of plurals - add 's' or > > 'es' to the end of the word, with a small number of exceptions. > > > > English has a long tradition of loan words from other languages, yet > > it seems to be only in the Latin and Greek ones - the prestige languages > > of centuries past - that some people expect us to conform to their > > grammar. I hope the absurdity of this is obvious. Why don't these > > people also insist on all the correct case endings, why is it just the > > nominative and the plural? Why not the ablative singular, or the > > vocative? Why don't they insist on agreement between adjesctives and > nouns? > > Why don't they insist on the correct forms for other languages we've > plundered, > > such as Norse, Australian, Algonquin, Basque, Spanish, Inuit and so on? > > > > So, bearing in mind that we speak English, let's use the English > > plural forms for these inkhorn terms: > > > > virus - viruses > > status - statuses > > focus - focuses > > ibis - ibises > > ibex - ibexes > > virus - viruses > > index - indexes (I might forgive indices in technical documents) > > radius - radiuses (I might forgive radii in mathematics) > > Twix - Twixes > > > > People who say things like 'virii', 'statii' etc. are trying to > > second-guess Latin grammar without knowing what they're doing. > It doesn't > > make them look educated. Far from it. Better to stick with the known > > quantity of English plurals.
