Plurals (not 'bloody' plurals)

[mkenuk]

re the disallowed 10-letter game. (Appropriate in view of the fact that three of the plurals I tried in that game were disallowed).

1. laddies.
Presumably because laddie is allowed, although it wasn't playable in this game.

2. dildoes
COD gives the plural of this word as either dildos or dildoes, but playing the latter got a 'Sorry, not known'

3. wallies.
wally is a very common term in UK for someone who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. It's possibly not too well known elsewhere, but it is in COD along with its plural.

[yelnats]

3. wallies.
wally is a very common term in UK for someone who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. It's possibly not too well known elsewhere, but it is in COD along with its plural.

I think well-known in Oz too.

[Alan W]

The explanation is the same in all three cases: laddie, dildoe and wallie are all words in our lexicon.

Dildoe is given by Collins Dictionary as an alternate spelling of dildo.

Wallie is given by the Shorter Oxford as an alternate spelling of the Scots word wally, which is -

• an adjective meaning good, fine, handsome; large, ample; ornamental
• an adverb meaning well, finely
• a noun meaning a toy, an ornament, a gewgaw

The last sense would give us wallies as a plural.

The term wally for a stupid or ineffectual person is certainly known in Australia. Some years ago the water authority here in Melbourne ran a "Don't be a wally with water" campaign.

As you may have noticed I've gone off the idea of changing anything to do with plurals, based on the Hippocratic principle "First, do no harm."

[mkenuk]

Thanks, Alan.

At least I've learned a couple of new words, although when I'll be able to use them is not clear!

 

[Jacki]

Hi Alan. You've probably already covered this, but I'd like to discuss "nuts" being a word - "pants" is a common word and you can use pant, but if referring to someone being "nuts", you really can't say "nut". What are your thoughts? Nuts is well known internationally as a term of craziness isn't it?

[2dognight]

Hi Jacki and welcome

You are right Nuts has been discussed

Nuts can also mean being enthusiastic about something - such as Chi !!

Carol

[Jacki]

Yes Carol and there's a saying in poker "Have you got the nuts?" meaning will you hold your nerve for the play. And of course there's slang for testicles - we could probably go on and on.

[Alan W]

You are right Nuts has been discussed

There is an outstanding 2015 suggestion of nuts from Tom44 - see here. There was a previous discussion of nuts and many other words, initiated by blackrockrose, here.

You can rifle through my overflowing in-tray at any time by going to the Word List Suggestion page and clicking on the "Open" button.

For some time I've refrained from making any changes relating to plurals issues because I suspect anything I do to remove an inconsistency is likely to create others. For example if we allowed nuts as a slang term for courage, why not balls on the same grounds? Well, actually, as blackrockrose noted in the earlier topic, I did add guts for precisely that usage, but I wonder now if that was a mistake.