h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It is a fact that Microsoft Word will not let you write the word 'fora' - each time I tried (for an essay in the Grad Dip Language Teaching) it insisted on changing it to 'for a', and I couldn't even add the word to the user dictionary!

I say 'data', 'fora' and 'referenda', and my parents always did, so I don't consider those words affected - but that may be just me...

'course, you *do* have various options. You can turn off autocorrect. You can add 'forums' to your dictionary. Or you can correct the correction (it won't autocorrect twice).

Actually - I'm relaxed about what words people choose to use. But I won't let anyone correct 'forums' etc. Or singular data. Often these are the same eejits who write 'Curricula Vitarum' - which is ignorant as well as affected.

Time to air a joke I've used many times before:
A Cambridge mathematician was once phoned by a colleague one Sunday morning, saying:
'Come round later today. I want to discuss certain conundra concerning maxima and minima.'
He replied:
'Can't you think of anything better for us to do on our day off than sitting on our ba doing sa?'

Da-da da-daa da daa-aa-a

(I mean add 'fora' to your dictionary)

The Oxford English Dictionary doesn't give a plural for 'forum' - at least, my old 7th edition doesn't. It says both 'referenda' and 'referendums' are acceptable.

That last sentence should have said, "It says both 'referenda' and 'referendums' are acceptable as plural of 'referendum'." Neither is acceptable as plural of forum.

Elephants cannot lock their trunks

both fora and referenda will appear in most english dictionaries. the reason for the choice in plurals is very simple. the original words are latin, but are so widely used in the host language that they can properly now be seen as english words. which is why you don't need to italicise them in documents when using the standard english form of adding an "s" to create a plural.

if one wanted to be REALLY pedantic, we should also insist the word be italicised if the latin plural is used.

haven't we had this discussion already in this thread?

on topic:

western european males are, for the first time since records have been made of such things, taller than their american cousins. on average of course.

wombats do square poos

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Our computer at home, uses Lotus Word Pro, and we've done all those things, but this was one at Unitec, and they wouldn't allow students to have that much autonomy over the system..

If you go to google.co.uk and search on daewoo fridge replacement shelves, the third hit you get is from.....billybragg.co.uk.

More steel is used to make bottle caps in the U.S. than cars.

down to 4th now. must be a busy forum.

ginger rogers got her first name not because of her hair, but because a young cousin could not say her real name, virginia, properly.

Jean-Paul Sartre wasn't Belgian.

(True! I heard it announced on radio 4 this morning).

94% of English people that buy a second home abroad paint it's front door blue.

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a sperm whales brain weighs exactly the equivalent of 365 hob knob biscuits

The writer and philosopher Albert Camus used to play in goal for the Algerian national football side.

In a survey of 40,000 ostriches over a period of twenty years, not a single one stuck it's head in the sand

Now...I *think* I've heard that Camus' alleged profficiency is a bit of inflation - even though it is now quoted authoritatively. He certainly played club football in goal...but I don't think he actually played for an Algerian national side. In fact...would there have been such a thing in those days? Or would Algeria have counted as a departement of France? Like Tahiti, Martinique and St-Pierre-et-Miquelon are nowadays.

Yup. Confirmed. He played for his university, but his footballing career was ended by a bout of tuberculosis.

I'm as surprised as anyone. I had an inkling that he'd played for Marseilles.