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Is there a role that says how to "singularize" a word whose plural is rooties?
A package of Oreos is cookies. One Oreo is a cookie.
The politician surrounds himself with toadies. One of those aides would be a toady.
So how do you determine whether the singular of a word ends in -y or in -ie? Is there a rule?
What about cooky/cookie, mommy/mommie, frenchy/frenchie?
The plurals would properly be spelled cookies, mommies and frenchies, but what is the correct spelling of the singular?
You're new here, L/F. (Welcome!) and we generally don't clobber people for using words "incorrectly", as we are "desriptivists" rather than "prescriptivists" but one of the goals of a writer is to keep his writing 'invisible". When a reader is thinking about the spelling or grammar one uses, he's not thinking about the meaning you're tryng to convey.
Consequently, if there is a rule about this, I'd like to follow it, instead of having readers wonder what kind of idiotic lout I might be.
But if there is a rule other than "google each spelling and see which gets the most hits", nobody here seems to know it - and given the collective wisdom of others on this forum, such a rule probably doesn't exist.
Let's switch over for a moment to the brand name that starts arguments in this area: Lego.
Unremarkable US utterance: How many Legos did you need to build this figure?
The Brits, and from my observations everyone else in the world, would consider this wrong. They would have you say How many pieces of Lego did you need?
Ron Draney said
They would have you say How many pieces of Lego did you need?
Some people buy six Cokes; normally I buy six cans of Coke or six bottles of Coke if they are packaged by the Coke people to be consumed directly from the bottle, but if a vendor is selling fountain pop in paper cups, yo might buy si Cokes. Or if you are getting 2-liter jugs, you might buy 4 Cokes and two Mountain Dews.
But that, like Lego, is a question of whether you buy a can or bottle, versus buying the contents of the bottle. I don't think there's any question of the spelling of the singular form when there is no question about the spelling of the plural.
As the joke goes: Dear sir. please ship me a mongoose. And while you're at it, please send me another.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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