LINGUIST List 2.575

Fri 27 Sep 1991

Disc: Mice and Mouses

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

  • Bill Poser, plurals
  • Allan C. Wechsler, 2.559 Mouses
  • Margaret Fleck, of mice and mouses

    Message 1: plurals

     Date: Wed, 25 Sep 91 12:27:48 -0700
    From: Bill Poser <posercrystals.stanford.edu>
    Subject: plurals
    I am astounded by the contention that computer mice have the plural "mouses". I don't think that I have ever heard "mouses" instead of "mice", and I inhabit a computer-intensive world in which mice are a frequent topic of conversation. Is this a geographic division, or one between computer people and others? Who says "mouses"? Indeed, in a certain milieu there has been a fashion of extending the -en plural. Thus, we have the following singular/plural pairs: VAX (Digital Equipment computer line) VAXen Chipmunk (HP 9836 computer) Chipmunken Macintosh Macintoshen BLIT (AT&T intelligent terminal) BLITzen (the //z// is NOT a typo) and box^boxen, where "box" means workstation, as in "In our lab we have various UNIX boxen." For me, these are so well established that the -s plural is unacceptable. Bill

    Message 2: 2.559 Mouses

     Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1991 15:42-0400
    From: Allan C. Wechsler <ACWYUKON.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
    Subject: 2.559 Mouses
    Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1991 12:24 EDT From: The Linguist List <linguist%tamsun.tamu.edupucc.PRINCETON.EDU> Date: Mon, 23 Sep 91 16:28:48 EDT From: elc9jprime.acc.Virginia.EDU Subject: 2.552 Responses: macs, needs, being, roles With respect to "mouses" (computer) vs. "mice" (rodent). Note that the plural of "walkman" is "walkmans", not "walkmen". On the other hand, the plural of "workman" is "workmen". The irregular plurals seems more closely tied to the original, literal meaning, whereas the newer, more metaphorical meaning allows the more productive plural. -Ellen Contini-Morava In "Hacker English", the jargon of computerphiles that has radiated from a few universities in recent years, and of which I fancy myself a native speaker (MIT 1974-1982), there is a marked preference for irregular plurals. I never hear pointing devices, in the plural, called anything except "mice"; and the plural of "spouse" is frequently "spice". Plural DEC 11/780's are frequently called "vaxen", and the plural of "bignum" (roughly, an integer bigger than a single memory word can hold) is "bigna". An unrelated chuckle: Natasha: Ve need a safecracker! Boris: Ve already got a safecracker? Natasha: Ve do? Whom? Boris: Meem, dat's whom!

    Message 3: of mice and mouses

     Date: Wed, 25 Sep 91 18:33:32 -0500
    From: Margaret Fleck <mfleckherky.cs.uiowa.edu>
    Subject: of mice and mouses
    There may be dialect variation in the plural of "mouse." In the computer science communities I've worked in, the plural was "mice" even if it was made of metal and plastic. Then again, I have a pair of plurals for another item: "indices" are the little numbers that hang onto variables in mathematics, but "indexes" (or perhaps "indices") are the things that occupy so many pages at the back of books. Margaret Fleck