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

Sorry, but my brain seems to be in contradictory mode:

1. There's more than one infinity. In fact, there's an infinite number of bigger and bigger infinities. The smallest is considered countable, all the others aren't. No, don't dwell on it.

2. Food 'stuffs' - I'm sure I've heard that expression.

Incidentally, I gather that 'princes' is the only plural word that becomes singular when you stick an 's' on the end. Unless, of course, you know different...

Sorry to be coarse but ' It's the dog's" is short for 'It's the dog's bollox', which I think comes from the joke Why does a dog lick it's own bollox? Because it can.

Curses, Kaeori, you're right about the food stuffs - just when I thought I'd pinned the language down (a little) ...

Isn't hice also the Royal plural for horse ?

As with the dogs questions, I've already answered the one about the English the royal family uses (about 500 postings ago).
Which of us speaks proper British English? Anyone born in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland speaking their native language! But I, of course, speak properer than anyone else.

Hice is the Royal word for house.

They also say grind when they mean ground, ears when they mean yes (try it), and signed when they mean sound. It's known as receieved pronunciation (RP) or BBC English and is, thankfully, on the way out. Regional dialects are in.

To be boring, RP is in fact a regional dialect of the old English region of Mercia, of which London was a big part. As London was also the main base for the aristocracy and legal and academic circle, RP became regarded as 'correct'. It's nice to know it's nothing special, don't you think?

Its terribly contrived, but Amis as in more than one person called Ami?

Hi Andy, Nice to have you back. As I said, I've done that one in your absence. I knew of an American who worked in a shop and used to say "F*ck you very much" instead of "Thank you very much" and no-one ever noticed.

Do you speak properer than ANYONE else or do you speak properer than EVERYONE else ?

Any substance does not have a plural: concrete, cement, wood, stuff.

Stuff originally meant cloth, which also has no plural when spoken of as a substance. A large quantity of cloth. Gradually it came to mean what it does now. The word "material" took over, but now it too has come to mean "stuff". This was replaced by "fabric", but now we have "the fabric of society".

I don't know what the correct plural for hippopotamus is. I suspect that it is hippopotamuses. This word comes from Greek and literally means "horse of the river", so the correct plural should be "horses of the river", hippoipotamoi, or somehing like that, not "horse of the rivers".

The plural of "Major General" is "Major Generals" as you might expect. But the plural of "Attorney General" is "Attorneys General". In the first, the General is the thing, described by Major. In the second, the Attorney is the thing, described by General.

A collection of barrage baloons is a baloon barrage, so you could say baloon barrage is the plural of barrage baloon.

The original plural of cow was kine. The word cattle was completely independent and came from chattels meaning possessions.

Interestingly, English lacks a name for that very important animal species, the bull or cow. All known words refer to either a male of the species or a female of the species. There is no word which represents an animal of indeterminate sex. When the European Commission were faced with this problem, they came up with "bovine animal".

You also get Scotch tape (this is in answer to a posting way back, but I'm answering it as I read it)

Sorry to jump back a bit, Nikki, but it matters not what the Royals speak, because, "Come the Revolution" they'll all be exiled anyway.(I should live that long!)

Regardless of its Hellenic origin, I have only heard hippopotami.

Funny you should mention cement, because it is a jolly interesting subject...http://www.h2g2.com/A407620

Is there a plural for "paradox"?

Actually all nature programs cheat with the "A hippopotamus / Some hippos" pluralisation.

Actually the Scotch/Scottish bit was dreamt up by some ENGLISH Victorian about the same time as all the tartan STUFF became "traditional". Personally I think "Schottische" should be extended to cover more than the dance.
And Scotch is also used to describe mist.

How sis this conversation get into my space?

All budding revolutionaries and students of english "like wot its spoke" should read "The Queen & I" by Sue Townsend.

you can also scotch a rumour, and you can welsh on a bet, but can you england or ireland something?

I think the plural of paradox should be parodies

"a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true
"a self-contradictory statement that at first seems true
"an argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises

Now I'm confused - even the difinitions seem to be paradoxes to me (Ahaaa - a plural nest-pa)

I check my dictionary. It says hippopotamus comes from latin, which came from the greek hippos potamos. Because it came through latin, one plural is hippopotami, but it also lists hippopotamuses.

There's always a problem putting plurals on foreign words.

For example, the word referendum comes from Latin, so should we say referendums or referenda. Technically, referendum is "the gerundive of the verb referre", whatever that means, so it is not a noun in Latin and can't have a plural. In English, it is a noun, so we should just stick an s on it. The same argument applies to pendulum.

If we use the hebrew word "goy" which means a non-jew, should we use the hebrew plural "goyim"?