<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Nomulous Blog &#187; word</title>
	<atom:link href="http://nomulous.com/blog/tag/word/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://nomulous.com/blog</link>
	<description>Caveat Lector</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:04:42 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1</generator>
		<item>
		<title>Fishes is a perfectly valid word</title>
		<link>http://nomulous.com/blog/fishes-is-a-perfectly-valid-word/</link>
		<comments>http://nomulous.com/blog/fishes-is-a-perfectly-valid-word/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>nomulous</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Languge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[english]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fish]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fishes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[language]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[metaplural]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[peoples]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plural]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[word]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wordism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://nomulous.com/blog/?p=287</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Forget racism or sexism, wordism is the worst. Poor &#8220;fishes&#8221; is constantly ridiculed and excluded from things just because of its special status as a noun. It has gotten to the point where it can&#8217;t even get a job nowadays because users of the English language have such strong prejudices about words that are just [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Forget racism or sexism, wordism is the worst. Poor &#8220;fishes&#8221; is constantly ridiculed and excluded from things just because of its special status as a noun. It has gotten to the point where it can&#8217;t even get a job nowadays because users of the English language have such strong prejudices about words that are just a little bit strange to the ear.</p>
<p>In all seriousness, one of the two words &#8220;fishes&#8221; and &#8220;wordism&#8221; is made up, and the other is not. If you asked people, I would say most of them would single out &#8220;fishes&#8221; as the impostor. And most of them they would be wrong. To be perfectly clear, <em>&#8220;fishes&#8221; is a word</em> . However, it doesn&#8217;t mean exactly what you&#8217;d expect. Hell is only slightly cooler than usual, and the plural of &#8220;fish&#8221; is still &#8220;fish&#8221;. However, in case you would like to specify that the particular group of fish you are talking about consists of more than one species, you may use the word &#8220;fishes&#8221; instead. The examples on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish#Fish_or_fishes">Wikipedia entry</a> do a good job of explaining the difference.</p>
<blockquote><p>The North Atlantic stock of <em>Gadus morhua</em> is estimated to contain several million fish.</p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<blockquote><p>My aquarium contains three different fishes: guppies, platies, and swordtails.</p></blockquote>
<p>The former is a regular old plural; there is more than one fish. The latter is a <em>metaplural</em>, if you will, and its plural-ness refers to the types of fish, not the fish themselves. Another <em>metaplural</em> that is in much more common usage is &#8220;peoples&#8221;. This word refers to different types (ethnicity, race, etc.) of people, a word that, like &#8220;fish&#8221;, is already plural. My favourite example is &#8220;The Peoples of Middle-earth&#8221;.</p>
<p><b>Update:</b> <em>This might be easy to understand, but harder to believe. Perhaps the <a href="http://australianmuseum.net.au/fish-and-fishes">Australian Museum</a> has more credibility that an unknown blog and a piece of user-generated content.</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://nomulous.com/blog/fishes-is-a-perfectly-valid-word/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

