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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Foreign plurals [was: Re: "Lap" unique to English?
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References: <332e629f.668861@news.mindspring.com> <33307198.3273817@news.exodus.net> <E7Bz6y.1xB@midway.uchicago.edu> <5gt954$a6q@idiom.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 13:37:12 GMT
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In article <5gt954$a6q@idiom.com>, Olivier Cremel <ocremel@idiom.com> wrote:
>Daniel von Brighoff (deb5@midway.uchicago.edu) wrote:
>
>: >For instance, "data."  I guess in some sense it means "givens," so the
>: >French authorities insist on translating this Greek word (which does
>: >not even obey English inflection rules) as "donnees." Why bother?
>
>: Maybe the French don't want to clutter up their beautiful and
>: morphologically pure speech with troublesome foreign plurals.
>
>In order to show, once again, your dislike of the French and the
>French language, you shoot yourself in the foot.

May Wee!

(BTW, what was the last time I did this?)

>Your statement implies that data is a foreign plural, even in English.
>Therefore how can it be an English word ?

One can use "foreign" in a historical sense, y'know.  As in "Datum is a
foreign word, but it's naturalised in English now."  Just like you can
say "Thymiane's mother is foreign, but she's been an American citizen for
years now."  If you prefer, just replace "foreign" with "irregular" (which
was where my emphasis was anyway; a foreign plural that's indistinguish-
able from a native one adds no clutter at all) and my smartass statement
stands.

Abby Ento!


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
