19-07-03 04:55, Brian M. Scott wrote:
> I'm not sure that these two are typical. I suspect that
> 'pocketses' gets a big boost from Tolkien. I've mostly seen
> 'toeses' in association with 'noses' in rhymes and games
> involving body parts. Are there others that are comparably
> popular?
Here's a story from another list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/palanthsci/message/624
"Ramsons was called hramesa in Old English. The plural of
that was hramesan. We should expect this paradigm to develop
into something like rams/ramsen. But -en was not obviously a
plural inflection, so ramsen was misinterpreted as a
singular an a new plural was formed by adding -s to it for
good measure. With some orthographic laxity this double
plural has yielded Modern English ramsons -- which usually
functions as a singular. Now, as you know, double plurals
are a familiar phenomenon, but this is the most singular
double plural I've ever seen.
Piotr"