On 18 September 2012 16:52, John Gilmore <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't find the argument that the terminal 's' in 'PoOps' represents > the plural terminus of 'Principles' at all persuasive. It seems to me > to be a desperate expedient to justify the indefensible.
I find it entirely persuasive. I believe it's a quite ordinary metathesis, like many others in English and indeed many languages. While English has little experience with forming - let alone pluralising - words as acronyms or as severe condensations, it has long experience with words like teaspoonful, which has an unargued plural of teaspoonfuls, rather than teaspoonsful (or teaspoonsfull). Of course we have phrases like Governors General, but once we've collapsed our original into a single pronounceable word, my ear says the 's' both must be preserved, and must go at the end. What would we do with a similar shortening for, say, Attorneys at Law? Surely we would come up with something more like AtLaws, and less like AtLaw or AtsLaw. Doubtless there is a better example to be had. > My reasons for preferring 'PrOp' are three: > 1) it is innocuously pronounceable; Though the CamelCase makes the pronunciation rather less obvious. > 2) it is devoid of the vaguely scatological connotations of its competitors; The CamelCase helps push PoOps away from the scatological by suggesting both a visual and audible break. > and > 3) it is less clumsy than they. > Finally, of course: À chacun son goût! Indeed. Tony H. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
