4 ms·
It's always difficult to produce hard and fast rules with English. But there are often two words (or stems) for things, one from the Germanic roots and one from
by pacaro 10y ago
It's always difficult to produce hard and fast rules with English. But there are often two words (or stems) for things, one from the Germanic roots and one from Latin (either via Norman French, or from later scientific etc. addition) which leads us to see with our visual system. The older Germanic words tend to be for more commonplace vocabulary, whereas the Latin tends to be for more formal or technical usage (YMMV). But because the inputs to English are mostly indo-European these two roots are sometimes similar anyway.
- sho 10y agoIt's more than difficult - it's impossible. The number of exceptions to every supposed rule in English is ridiculous. There is no way to learn the language except by absorption and rote. That's sort of why I support octopi. It is predictable, idiomatic and consistent. You shouldn't have to research the origins of a word in order to pluralise it.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]