Comments on: The Word Nerd

By: Callimachus

Callimachus — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 17:58:32 +0000

Mark probably is right about -ai instead of -ae. I think I transliterated that incorrectly out of ancient Greek into modern English. My Greek is only self-taught.

The coffee shop owner could not have avoided the plural because it was a box of thermae he had lent out for some social or business function, and the instruction was to the organizers of the event to return them all to him in that box.

By: tt

tt — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 17:48:38 +0000

Reid has the right idea. An individual is reading, and said individual should have only one….

By: Reid

Reid — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 15:36:01 +0000

Er, I would’ve just changed the sign: “please return your thermos here.”

Of course, then we wouldn’t have this illustrious post.

By: tt

tt — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 15:19:19 +0000

I would do it as such: Thermos’s, but that probably isn’t grammatically correct.

By: Mark Liberman

Mark Liberman — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 12:31:01 +0000

You write: “Thermae or therma are more etymologically correct, but they look nothing like English.”

I’m not sure where you get thermae from. I’d think that a Greek adjective of three endings (which thermos -ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Âª -on was, I think) would have nominative plurals in -oi (masculine), -ai (feminine) and -a (neuter).

By: Montag

Montag — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 12:27:57 +0000

From the title I was looking forward to learning the etymology of the word “nerd”. Oh, well. =P

By: Justin Gardner

Justin Gardner — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 09:01:58 +0000

Not to be too obvious, but words are the very cornerstone of communication.

Of course your “waste of bandwidth” is appreciated here! ;-)