XKCD Fora

[no-genius]

... Because something is not right here...

[Gelsamel]

Not unless we start talking about non-nerdy things.

[TheTankengine]

I'm assuming this is in reference to datum being the singular of data.

I have always been fascinated with the "-i" suffix for plurals.

Octopi, hippopotami, fori...

[LE4dGOLEM]

I'm assuming this is in reference to datum being the singular of data.

I have always been fascinated with the "-i" suffix for plurals.

Octopi, hippopotami, fori...

OBJECTION!

Octopus is a greek word. It's Octopodes.

[hiddenmaniac]

People don't seem to understand that when I discuss it with them in the arenae and stadia of my town.

[Hawknc]

I considered this a while back and looked it up. Apparently it can go either way. I'm all for it, though, just to be different.

[no-genius]

Also, it would might take a while for the spambots to find it again?

[SpitValve]

Correct Latin is definitely "fora", because "forum" is neuter.

But in English you don't have to follow the original language, you're allowed to just throw an "s" on the end, most of the time.

"octopuses" & "octopodes" are both ok. As are "forums" and "fora", although "fora" is nicer to my Latinised brain. "Maoris" and "Maori" are also technically both fine, but it's way more culturally sensitive to say "Maori".

[hermaj]

I like fora. And Christmae!

Actually, that's probably one of my favourite pluralised forms, the 'e' on the end. And 'a', I guess, also. And I think fora will make us different, and cool, and maybe somewhat less botted. Would they not be programmed to look for "forums.site" to post? I doubt any would be clever enough (or their programmers insightful enough) to include fora in the spam program.

EDIT: Edited for clarity. It's cold and it's 8:30 and I was woken up simultaneously by road repair/neighbours barking dogs/delivery guy I had forgotten to expect, so sorry if it still makes no sense.

[Peshmerga]

Fore?


Fore...play? :O

[no-genius]

Fore?


Fore...play? :O

yes, or skin

[Teaspoon]

Just as long as nobody starts trying to pluralise -us with -ii. It's just one i. Radii has two i's because radius already had one there in the singular, dammit!

One of my other forums often has people who think they're clever saying "virii" and even trying to correct people who say "viruses" or "viri". It annoys me. A lot.

The people who say penii annoy me even more, because if that -is is going to pluralise to anything other that -ises, it's -es! I looked it up and penes really is listed an acceptable plural of penis. I think it's a brilliant word, but it put me off eating penne pasta somehow.

[hermaj]

LOL PENES LOL

That is pretty awesome. Viri/i annoys me! I say viruses. Is that bad?

[Teaspoon]

No, viruses is just fine. Pretty sure viri is acceptable, too, but it does seem a bit odd. People who insist that it's virii make me cranky.

[hermaj]

I am glad. I don't really want to be one of those people who is trying to sound all smart but can't pluralise stuff.

You know what I love more than plurals, though? Collective nouns.

[Verysillyman]

I want to campaign for 'ye' to be brought back into common usage, since it's really quite useful and there's nothing taking it's place except 'you guys' or (God forbid) 'youse'.

I shall start to use octopodes. It solves many problems and makes me feel knowledgable.

[Teaspoon]

Yes, ye needs to come back. I like to be able to specify whether I'm using singular you and plurular you. Thee, thou and thy can stay out, but authors need to learn to use them correctly if they're going to use them. Thou is you(object), thee is you(subject) and thy just means your. It's really not that hard and I keep seeing it done wrong.

Also, I'd like inclusive and exclusive versions of we and us. It can get confusing when you tell your flatmate "we're going to the shops" and they assume you mean an inclusive we and argue that they're too busy right now and want to go in an hour or so when you actually meant an exclusive one because you and your girlfriend are about to go.

[kira]

I want to campaign for 'ye' to be brought back into common usage, since it's really quite useful and there's nothing taking it's place except 'you guys' or (God forbid) 'youse'.

What? Y'all too good for the colloquial terms?

[no-genius]

They can't get enough of their collective nouns, eh?

[Gelsamel]

We're still not talking about anything not-nerdy yet so it should be forum rather then fora.

[Peshmerga]

Penii.

[no-genius]

We're still not talking about anything not-nerdy yet so it should be forum rather then fora.

Come again?

[Gelsamel]

We're still not talking about anything not-nerdy yet so it should be forum rather then fora.

Come again?

We're only talking about nerdy things, and since we never deviate from talking about nerdy things forum shouldn't be pluralised in the first place.

[Ephphatha]

I vote for fora. I'll be forced to update my bookmarks though... That may be a challenge.

[moopanda]

No, viruses is just fine.

Viruses are just fine.

[Peshmerga]

Viruses are quite not fine

[hermaj]

They are fascinating! I think! I do microbiology next year.

[no-genius]

I vote for fora. I'll be forced to update my bookmarks though... That may be a challenge.

but you wouldnt need to change the bookmark for xkcd.com, so you could just follow the fora link from there

[Verysillyman]

That's what I always do anyway.

I thought that thee, thou and thy were just informal?

[Teaspoon]

Not informal - quite the opposite, in fact. When they were in use they were the correct terms for formal speech. I see a lot of wannabe-authors using them wrong, with "thee" and "thou" swapped around or "thy" in place of either or both of them. It's messy, it's confusing and it's wrong.

It's a long time since I studied German in high school, but I think they still use "du" and "sie" the same way English once used "thou" and "thee". "Sie" also means "she" and "you"(plurular) though, so they're still silly.

As for moopanda's input, I promise that from now on I'll use quote marks whenever I'm referring to the word itself rather than its meaning. I was going to today, but I was typing it on a laptop with one of those horrible keyboards that laptops tend to have. The apostrophe/quote key is surprisingly awkward on it, so I figured I'd leave them out and you guys would know what I meant.

[Jack Mac]

One goose, two geese.

One moose, two meese!

[Ephphatha]

I vote for fora. I'll be forced to update my bookmarks though... That may be a challenge.

but you wouldnt need to change the bookmark for xkcd.com, so you could just follow the fora link from there

Ahh, but you see, I have the xkcd rss feed set in Thunderbird, so I check that for new comics. Same with the blog.

[moopanda]

As for moopanda's input, I promise that from now on I'll use quote marks whenever I'm referring to the word itself rather than its meaning.

Don't do stuff on my account, I was just being a smartarse.

[SpitValve]

This is how I understood it:

You/ye/thou/thee

Code: Select all

     Object      Subject
 Singular   Thee         Thou
     Plural   Ye             You


(and "thy" is posssessive singular)

e.g. Sally is talking to Billy
"Would thou take me to the pictures?"
"I would love you take thee to the pictures"

Billy and Bobby are talking to Sally and Molly
"Mind if we take ye to the pictures?"
"You may take us to the pictures."


Basically use ye/thee where "me" would work, and you/thou where "I" would work.

[hermaj]

It's a long time since I studied German in high school, but I think they still use "du" and "sie" the same way English once used "thou" and "thee". "Sie" also means "she" and "you"(plurular) though, so they're still silly.

I know this probably isn't relevant any more, I just wanted to give my rusty German some exercise. It's been about three years for me. "Sie", as referring to you in the singular, is always spelt with a capital letter, and it is the default way to speak to a stranger or acquaintance that is older/superior to you. It is roughly equivalent to how we respectfully call people "sir" or "ma'am". Yeah, it also refers to the feminine, but I am fairly sure that "sie" as a plural refers to "they", not "you (pl.)" or "us".

Also, and this is just from memory, while sie = she, it uses different possessive pronouns to Sie = you. I think, for example, the feminine is ihnen while the plural is ihren. (They might be the other way around, but I am sure they are different.) The plural form of sie = they is used for Sie = you (s.), rather than the verb forms taken by du = you (s.) which might be a little easier to distinguish if you're talking about some girl or talking to the person you are talking to, but it was still incredibly annoying to have that to remember on top of those damn gendered pronouns.

[TheTankengine]

I've always been a fan of "yous guys"

Try it.





Pretty cool, huh?

[myoumyouou]

argh, i've always hated the word "you's" or however its spelt
its such a horrible rapeage of the english language

[TheTankengine]

argh, i've always hated the word "you's" or however its spelt
its such a horrible rapeage of the english language

Wrong.

[no-genius]

argh, i've always hated the word "you's" or however its spelt
its such a horrible rapeage of the english language

Wrong.

Quit arguing, yous guys! Hey, that is cool

[LE4dGOLEM]

I want to campaign for 'ye' to be brought back into common usage, since it's really quite useful and there's nothing taking it's place except 'you guys' or (God forbid) 'youse'.

I shall start to use octopodes. It solves many problems and makes me feel knowledgable.

The "Y" in "ye" (as in, ye olde whatever) is not actually a "y"; it's letter that looks suspiciously like a y, but is actually more like a

Code: Select all

|  |
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 `


... like a stylized letter "y". It meant a "th" sound. like thorn.