16 Jul
2009
16 Jul
'09
11:12 p.m.
On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Chris Elmquist<chrise at pobox.com> wrote:
oh ya... and why are they "VAXen"?
Ox/Oxen -> VAX/VAXen is the straight answer (there are a few joke
answers from back in the day like "why isn't it box/boxen?")
http://dictionary.babylon.com/VAXen
?Are there "PDP 11/44en" too? I've
got a couple Rainbowen here...
Not in English you don't. At issue is the plural of English words
ending in 'x' (which I'm sure goes back to Anglo-Saxon or something.
The rule from Latin would be something like the plurals ending in 'es'
since that's typical of third declension nouns).
http://www.fortunecity.com/bally/durrus/153/gramch13.html#3i
-ethan