Etymology of Moose

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yeah, this is Travis from San Antonio, Texas.

Hi, Travis. Welcome to the show.

Hello, Travis.

During a Thanksgiving dinner last year, or a couple years ago, and we got a, we were playing a game called Balderdash, and the question was, what would you call more than one moose?

Okay, if a goose is a geese, and a group of sheep, what would a group of moose be? Would it be mooses or meat? Mooses or meat.

That’s the predicament we were in, because you’ve got the two O’s, that sounds better for a singular noun. But if you have the two E’s, that’s for a plural. So why wouldn’t moose be called a meese?

It’s hard to imagine seeing a herd of meese, isn’t it? That sounds tiny and small. It sounds like insignificant creatures, not these giant lumbering beasts.

Yeah, the plural of moose is moose, right? It’s like deer. It goes back to etymology, right? These have different origins, and so they’re not required by the rules of English morphology to pluralize in the same way.

A lot of the inconsistencies of English is because, as I’ve mentioned before, English is not a planned language. Nobody sat down as a committee and said, all right, let’s make this all conform to standard rules, and everything is going to be exactly alike, and it’ll be consistent. English is a mess.

That’s a mess. Yeah, and goose comes from European languages, and moose comes from native language here.

Yeah, Native American languages, right? Yeah, exactly. And so it’s an anglicization of… Abenaki word. It’s Abenaki. I think it is. Yeah.

So the plural of moose is either moose or mooses, but most people say moose. So if I’m going to go hunt, I would say I’m going to go shoot some mooses.

Yeah, you could say it. Mooses sounds weird to some people’s ears, or they just say moose. I’m going to shoot a bunch of moose.

With a camera. With a camera. Okay. Well, I have a second part to that, too.

Okay. This is a saying that me and my wife were talking about, and she said, well, whatever’s good for the goose is also good for the gander. I do understand what that means, but where did that even originate from, or is there origination to it, or was it just something somebody made up one day?

Travis, what do you understand it to mean? Well, from what I understand, if it’s good for one, it’s good for all.

Mm— Exactly. And a gander is a male goose. And the term goose is applied to female geese. So it’s about gender equity, really.

Oh, is it? What’s good for the goose? From the 1600s, gender equity in the 1600s. Who knew?

Well, yeah. Yeah, the old phrase is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, which means they taste the same no matter which one you’re eating. When they’re on your plate, they’re the same.

Well, I appreciate it, guys. That was pretty fun, actually. Oh, you sound surprised.

Yeah, you do sound surprised. Always with the surprised tone. Anyway, thanks for calling, Travis. Give us a ring another time, all right?

All right, thanks. You guys have a good day. Take care now. Bye-bye.

Thanks, Travis. We’ll take your questions. There’s funny stuff that comes up. The smallest thing that you mention at the dinner table can turn into the most interesting radio call, and we really appreciate it.

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