3 ms·

> ISAs (ISAE?) -ae only if the word is a) not an abbreviation, b) Latin, and c) a-declension.

• sdegutis 10y ago
  Pretty sure GP was joking. But anyway, my favorite word to throw out there in fun little pedantic conversations like this = octopus, which ends up ! actually being octopi like most people think, but rather octopodes due to it being from Greek & ! Latin.
  • creshal 10y ago
    Grammar is always fun, even more so when you start mixing several languages.
    • PeCaN 10y ago
      Especially in the same word! coughtelevisioncough
      • cm3 10y ago
        hexadecimal, was originally and correctly sexadecimal, but when it got wider use somehow was turned into hexadecimal instead of the also correct hexagecimal.
  • mjevans 10y ago
    I support languages fully 'thieving' and owning words that they copy (not borrow) from other languages. It might be octopodes in those other languages, but octopi is the pattern most expect from the current structure and therefore it is more correct; scholars of exceptions be forgiven for their pedantic ways.
• dang 10y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12358793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12358793 and marked it off-topic. Not that there's anything wrong with fun grammatical digressions, but they tend to get too much weight as subthreads.