What’s the Plural for a Computer Mouse?

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Vera. Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. Well,

I had a discussion with my brothers and sisters the other day, and we’re talking about mice,

Not like the animal, but mouse, like the computer mouse. And to me, I said, like,

Plural was mouses. And I know it sounded weird. But if I hear mice, I think of the animal.

And then my sister said, no, it has to be mice.

And my computer engineer brother, he said it’s like mouse, like just you say 20 mouse.

And I’m like, that doesn’t sound right.

So I decided to call you guys.

So you have three different candidates for the plural of the computer mouse on your desk.

Is that what you’re saying?

Yes, that’s correct.

And you go with mouses.

You would go online shopping for computer mouses.

That’s what I would do.

Or if I was talking to somebody, I would go like, oh, yeah, I have five mouses at home.

I don’t know, something like that.

I just feel like I say I have five mice at home.

It sounds like I have mice at my home.

Yeah, it sounds kind of like an infestation, huh?

Right, and not the good kind.

Well, Vera, interestingly enough, far and away the most common plural for the computer accessory that we use to move around the cursor, it is mice.

Although you’re not wrong, because some dictionaries will say either mice or mouses is okay.

The original patent application for this device called it a position indicator control, and I’m really glad that we don’t use that term anymore.

Early on in the 1960s, tech workers came up with the term mouse because the little device is about the size of a mouse and is attached to the computer by a wire coming out of one end so that it does resemble a rodent.

But Vera, the truth is that Grant has had tons of experience in the tech world, and I’m sure that he has some thoughts along these lines.

All right. Sit back now.

Just to put it into perspective, I was there when the Internet launched for the average person, and they’re training people how to use the Internet and how to use desktop computers.

Like when people switched over from paper to computers, I trained people to do that.

So they’re at a really crucial time.

And one of the things I noticed among my colleagues in the tech world is that they really delighted in saying mouses just because it irritated other people so much.

And so for a while in the 90s, people really tried to force that mouses plural down the throats of everyone else.

But it didn’t really stick.

And so mice has more or less replaced mouses.

And mouses is kind of now this artifact.

Mouses is this artifact of the 90s.

But the Hackers Dictionary, which I think is coming up on its 30th anniversary, is this revered kind of repository of computer industry wisdom and history and folklore, has a lot of really great examples of these really fun examples of unnecessarily complicated words and unnecessary plurals.

For example, hackers and computer people like to say that the plural of mongoose should be polygoose because mono should become poly.

That sounds right.

And anyway, the plural of mouse isn’t mice or mouses.

It’s meces, M-E-C-E-S.

I’m beginning to like that better.

Yeah.

Really, you do.

So, and that’s one of the things I always loved about the tech world is that tech people, you know, they love to goof.

And really that’s kind of, too, what trying to force the mouses, plural, was all about.

It’s just goofing.

Stoking around.

People, we all love to goof with language.

They’re just goofing.

And that’s what’s fun about language.

That is exactly what’s fun about language.

Yeah.

And the diversity.

I mean, I love that mouse feels natural to you, and that’s what you use.

Yeah.

Well, thank you, guys.

I love being here.

All right.

Be well.

Take care of yourself.

You too, guys.

Be safe.

Thank you.

Okay.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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