The question occurred to me after I wrote "mosquitos" in the comments to the previous post and saw that someone else had written "mosquitoes." My version looks spiffier and more Spanish — and the word is, the OED says, "A borrowing from Spanish" — but "mosquitoes" seems to coordinate with "tomatoes" and "potatoes." Why does that "e" intrude itself in the plural? (It can even over-intrude, as it did on poor Dan Quayle, who is remembered these days only for misspelling "potato.")
Anyway... take your pick. Both "mosquitoes" and "mosquitos" are correct. I give you this image from the OED, which treats both plurals equally and which also shows you the wild history of the spelling of "mosquito," beginning with "muskyto":
Finishing this post, I see that the tag I've had for years is "mosquitoes," so I haven't been consistent, and this is a matter where I think the consistency is the most important.
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I believe the plural of those things is "vile creatures".
My word for mosquitos is *smack*.
Fortunately they're not as bad here as they are up in the North Woods.
In your favor the english language isn't very consistant.
" I know the devil grins
at the seas of ink I splatter.
God forgive my literary sins
The other kind don't matter."
I prefer mosquiti.
It's 'skeeters.'
"Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall." - Joseph Conrad
In middle school, I found myself in the top ten of the Central Pennsylvania Spelling Bee, televised on the local PBS station. I got 7th place, and was eliminated with the word "mosquitoey." I got through spelling "mosquito," and then paused, thinking to myself, this isn't really a word, is it? Then I mangled the suffix.
As a consolation prize, I received a copy of the book "I Touch the Future: The Christa McAuliffe Story." I never read that cursed book, since earlier that year one of our teachers rolled in a TV and had us watch the Challenger explode.
"Bloodsucker"/"Bloodsuckers"
i always thought, the plural was: Vermin.. Or maybe, Pests
Quayle got hosed. The card in his hand had it spelled “potatoe,” which the media dutifully would have pointed out if he were a Democrat. But he’s not, so it became a laugh line.
Bastids!
What is the plural of "mosquito"?
Let's go back inside.
What is the plural of "mosquito"?
Bat food.
What is the plural of "mosquito"?
Squadron - at least if we’re talking about the WWII British aircraft.
Just an old country lawyer is correct. It is usually prefaced with an expletive (e.g., f***ing skeeters!).
What is the plural of "mosquito"?
Wisconsin State Birds.
Thank you, Tim Maguire for coming to the defense of one of the most unfairly maligned public officials in US History. This was an early but by no means the earliest example of the MSM deploying against an elected Republican official. As Glenn Reynolds says, "No matter how much you think you hate the media, it isn't enough."
The plural of mosquito is mo'squitos.
Whatev. I prefer Mojitos.
English orthography basically begins with Samuel Johnson. Before his Dictionary (I read somewhere Johnson coined the term), printers tended to copy other printers with wider circulation. Broadsheets and pamphlets exploded in popularity in the 17th century, especially after the execution of Charles I when factions and sects multiplied like horny rabbits. The Ranters denounced the Diggers who in turn excoriated the Quakers, and everybody damned the Romans (i.e. Catholics) to Hell, often in street corner oratory, but more often through the printing press. Through the influence of well-paid printers on each other and in turn on their journeymen, English spelling started to settle down to something more like regularity, or perhaps, less like chaos.
English words ending in o are frequently borrowings from other tongues, Spanish and Italian usually. 16th-century writers hated them judging from the e's they often added, but from their perspective, the final e helped the reader grasp the pronunciation. The example pointed out to me is to and toe, two common and ancient English words. To and toe aren't rhymes and never have been judging from literature. The digit on your foot isn't pronounced "tow-ee", it's a perfect rhyme with the verb meaning to pull a boat with a rope. The final e isn't voiced but it's not superfluous; it lengthens the o. This is why Johnson formed the plurals of words ending in a long o with an es, to preserve the long o.
The band that visited Gilligan's Island spelled it "Mosquitoes," for what that is worth:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+mosquitoes+gilligan%27s+island
The deHavilland Mosquito was a WWII twin-engine wooden airplane that the RAF used to drive the Germans nuts. It had a low radar profile and was very very fast. Goering was jealous.
Narr nails it.
The reason for doubting the story of Noah and the Flood is that a sensible person would have swatted those two mosquitoes while he had the chance.
This is all related to the conundrum of the un-writable English sentence. We can all speak it and be completely understood, but none of us can write it without engendering an argument. So what word represents those three completely unrelated yet vital homophones? (Well, a pair are vital, the third could be just "things" in the manner of the bird people of Brontitall.) And what is its plural? If you think it's toes, I think you're in for an argument.
And what about foreign words in English? What obligations apply? Do we endeavor to preserve the pronunciation, and if yes, what dialect? If it's Spanish, should Castilian prevail over Catalan? For example, consider the subject of Japanese swords. There seems to be a shitload of people who use the Japanese word katana rather than Japanese sword. Okay, they are paying respect to a subject they respect and insist everyone else respect. But when the subject is more the one Japanese sword, they say katanas, which isn't Japanese.
I believe it was the deHavilland Mosquito that whisked Niels Bohr out of Denmark from under the Germans' noses to join the Manhattan project.
Dos and does.
Speaking of plurals, I just saw a cover of Vogue magazine featuring Jill Biden along with a quote. (via Powerline)
"We will decide our future," says Mrs. Biden. I would demand substantial clarification of those plurals, and while demanding I would be brandishing a poleax.
Yancy Ward writes, "Dos and does."
I think you need a dose.
"What is the plural of "mosquito"?"
Democrats.
FYI, the Spanish word for "fly" is "mosca". But Spanish orthography has its quirks as well. When the "k" sound precedes a, it is written "ca". But before i, it is "qui". So, a little fly is a mosquito.
Michael writes, "I believe it was the de Havilland Mosquito that whisked Niels Bohr out of Denmark..."
That was an unarmed civil registry version of the Mosquito operated by British Overseas Airways Corporation. They were used primarily to maintain Britain's diplomatic presence in Sweden. As there was no practical air route from London to Stockholm that didn't cross Nazi-controlled airspace, it was decided to fit out the fastest available long-range aircraft as a civil transport to outpace the Luftwaffe. Instead of a bomb bay, these "airliner" Mossies had very uncomfortable accommodations for two or three passengers or the equivalent weight of documents, cryptographic gear, etc.
The Germans regarded Sweden as a friendly neutral. As a major source of high-grade mineral ores, optical glass, and other vital war materials, Sweden got consideration from the Nazi foreign ministry other neutrals did not. For example, they often granted Swedish requests regarding travel permits for Danish nationals. That's how Bohr got to the United States, via Stockholm then London, courtesy Geoffrey de Havilland.
Back when I was in offshore operations, I was doing the seabed survey work required to site a drilling rig in about 1000 ft of water. This usually involves the area for the whole mooring spread, i.e., 8 huge anchors set in a pattern with about a mile of chain on each, and the rig in the center. Anyway - a Canadian group got in touch and asked if we could expand our survey and attempt to find a bunch of Mosquitos on the seabed. You see, at the end of WWII, one of the de-armament exercises was to steam to the 100 fathom mark and push stuff off the side of aircraft carriers to get rid of it, and that's what they were trying to find: A couple of dozen de Havilland Mosquitos that had been so consigned. They were thinking about pulling one or two of them up and restoring them.
We donated the survey time, but in the end all we ever found was a pipeline, some anchor scars from previous operations, and a couple of sunken fishing boats.
The Canadians knew approximately where the planes had been dropped, but of course there was no telling how far a wooden plane might fly, underwater....
Aggie said...
"A Canadian group got in touch and asked if we could expand our survey and attempt to find a bunch of Mosquitos on the seabed. You see, at the end of WWII, one of the de-armament exercises was to steam to the 100 fathom mark and push stuff off the side of aircraft carriers to get rid of it, and that's what they were trying to find: A couple of dozen de Havilland Mosquitos that had been so consigned. They were thinking about pulling one or two of them up and restoring them."
It is amazing how much material was chucked at the end of the war. As the Arsenal of Democracy, the US chucked the most: hundreds of millions of (1945) dollars' worth of equipment was chucked over the side, as it was cheaper to write them off as a total loss rather than ship back to the US for scrapping. Google Million Dollar Point off Espiritu Santo for just one example.
And that doesn't include the planes made at the end of the war that were then immediately flown to a boneyard for scrapping.
And not the the US: Norway simply tossed 168,000 tons of unexploded German ordinance into their fjords and lakes. For the British,those Mosquitos weren't the only armament to go over. All the other belligerents did the same. There is a lot more stuff buried in unmarked or unknown locations across Europe and the Far East.
Spanish and Catalán are two separate Romance languages .
Skeeters.
Next question.
Getting back to the subject... English is infamous for silent e's, but they have endured every criticism for good reason. Take, for example, Sir Francis Drake.
It is generally acknowledged in the English-speaking world that the spelling of a name is the absolute prerogative of the owner of that name. P.G. Wodehouse took advantage of that convention when he created the character called Rupert Eustace Psmith, who says "the P is silent as in pshrimp." Among the artifacts known to have been owned by the great sea captain and navigator, there is an ephemeris and tide table for the English Channel that bears his name on the flyleaf: F. Drak. Scholars acknowledge Drake pronounced his name like the word for a male duck and not like Dracula. The a is definitely a long one, and the older man corrected his younger self by adding the final e to affirm the pronunciation.
I remember two other things about Dan Quayle. First, that those who listened to him debating Al Gore on the radio thought he had cleaned his clock, to a whopping 64-28-8 (or something,) but the TV crowd had it more 50-50. Second, when a supposed scandal brake about Quayle going to a private golf club with a bunch of big contributors and there were apparently hookers and/or golddiggers there, the press asked his wife Marilyn whether she was concerned. She laughed and said "Anyone who thinks that Dan Quayle would rather have sex than play golf doesn't know Dan Quayle." I recall wincing and thinking "Gee, THANKS honey."
@Guimo
They have words in common. One of them is paella, which is now a loan word in English. Which pronunciation have we adopted?
the plural is always preceded by the word phuck
Phucking mosquito's
Ive never heard it any other way.
The head of our JROTC program was a retired major of engineers, who said that as a butterbar in 1945 in China, one of the projects he worked on was the burial of 1000 (it may have been 500) brand spanking new top of the line Caterpillar bulldozers, courtesy of Uncle Sam.
As to the submerged Mosquito aircraft, I have my doubts that plywood and laminates would long survive, but IANAE.
The Germans, Swedes, and Swiss all danced carefully from 1939 to 1945. Both neutrals were at times completely surrounded by German, German-occupied, or German-friendly territories, and both traded with the belligerents as much as they dared. Life goes on, and people have to eat.
@Rocco said, 12:39" " All the other belligerents did the same. There is a lot more stuff buried in unmarked or unknown locations across Europe and the Far East...."
In the far east, we had maps that had whole areas marked off as 'do not anchor' effectively, places where they had dumped live munitions that were still viable, only highly unstable. There were also areas that warned against any scuba diving, because of the threat of exposure to toxicity. There were areas that were particularly attractive to divers, obviously. A lot of expedient measures were taken then - I think everyone just wanted it all to be over with.
Get a few past just one and you have a "swarm" of mosquitoes.
Aggie said...
“In the far east, we had maps that had whole areas marked off as 'do not anchor' effectively, places where they had dumped live munitions that were still viable, only highly unstable. There were also areas that warned against any scuba diving, because of the threat of exposure to toxicity. There were areas that were particularly attractive to divers, obviously. A lot of expedient measures were taken then - I think everyone just wanted it all to be over with.”
At least we (the US) had the decency to mark where we dropped stuff. For most of the last quarter century, Japan has been quietly digging and disposing of 700,000 - 2 million chemical weapons they left behind in China during the war. And that’s only the ones the Chinese have stumbled across.
Japan used both chemical and biological (mainly the former) against China. Who knows what else is out there.
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