Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Had a look at your gallery David. Did you know Big Ben has a crack? To start with someone (interfering with the design) increased the weight of the hammer and that cracked the bell quite soon. A lighter hammer was installed and the bell turned through 90 degrees. It's been ringing ever since - with the crack. Don ___ Dr E D F Williams http://personal.inet.fi/cool/don.williams Author's Web Site and Photo Gallery See New Pages The Cement Company from HELL! Updated: August 15, 2003 - Original Message - From: David Mann [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 7:23 AM Subject: Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen Bob wrote: http://www.web-options.com/x-nouns.html Hmm, I'll have to keep this list for the next time I play Scrabble. Hmm, equinox on a triple word score... Cheers, - Dave http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi, Monday, November 3, 2003, 7:18:39 AM, you wrote: Had a look at your gallery David. Did you know Big Ben has a crack? To start with someone (interfering with the design) increased the weight of the hammer and that cracked the bell quite soon. A lighter hammer was installed and the bell turned through 90 degrees. It's been ringing ever since - with the crack. I was intrigued to see Dave's 'Roman' clock. The Roman way of telling the time was very different from ours. They had 24 hours in each day, but, because they needed to fit 12 into the daytime, and 12 into the night, and they didn't have mechanical clocks, the length of the hours varied according to the season from 45 to 75 minutes. There's a website about it here: http://www.beaglesoft.com/timehistoryroman.htm Incidentally, converting roman numerals into our arabic format is quite an interesting little programming exercise - try a calculator which reads roman numerals, adds, subtracts, mutiplies and divides, and gives the answer in roman numerals. -- Cheers, Bobmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
David Mann observed: Recently there were a few small changes made to trademark law in this country. Now if your brand becomes a household name (eg Hoover as above) you risk losing your trademark unless you educate your customers. Recently? This is why Coca-Cola corporation has been sending letters for _decades_ to every published author they notice using coke uncapitalized to refer to sodas in general and, I've heard, putting occasional ads in magazines for writers reminding people that Coke is a proper noun. It's also why we no longer capitalize cellophane, which lost its trademark status for the same reason long ago. Admittedly, I've been known, in some cotexts, to use the word recent to refer to anything that happened since about 1600, but not when referring to changes in US laws. Was there a recent change to what actions count for defending a trademark to make it easier or harder? 'Cause the basic principle you described isn't very new. -- Glenn
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Bob wrote: http://www.web-options.com/x-nouns.html Hmm, I'll have to keep this list for the next time I play Scrabble. Hmm, equinox on a triple word score... Cheers, - Dave http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Bob Walkden wrote: I saw that too. It's ok because people use fedex as a verb (Fedex it over to me for tomorrow) just as people use hoover (and google!) as a verb. I guess that means it's not a noun, so I should've taken it out. But of course, nominalization is my get out - What about yesterday's fedex? Where is it?. Recently there were a few small changes made to trademark law in this country. Now if your brand becomes a household name (eg Hoover as above) you risk losing your trademark unless you educate your customers. I don't know how this compares to other countries but I find it quite funny. As a result the Glad people (of Glad Wrap fame) ran an ad in the papers telling us that from now on their product must be referred to as Glad brand plastic food wrap, or something similar. Noone will pay any attention but the lawyers will be satisfied. FedEx Corporation international package transport service it to me for tomorrow does have a certain ring to it ;) Cheers, - Dave http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi, Friday, October 31, 2003, 12:35:59 AM, you wrote: I think I am the one who started using MXen as the plural for MX, based on German usage, in response to all the English grammer critics on rec.phot.* who claimed that it was improper to use MX's. I have since discovered they are full of it. Using an apostrophe when making the plural of an acronym is proper usage according to my style manual. Which style manual is that? It disagrees with the Oxford Style Manual, which says Do not use the apostrophe when creating plurals. This includes names, abbreviations (with or without full points), numbers and words not usually used as nouns [a list follows]. Do not employ what is sometimes known as 'the greengrocer's apostrophe', such as lettuce's for lettuces and cauli's for cauliflowers.. -- Cheers, Bobmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Look here for more info: http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm Check the section: Plurals and Apostrophes
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
graywolf wrote: [. . .] (For anyone who cares the Oxford American Dictionary says a's or as, the New Heritage Dictionary says a's) --- And my Oxford Pocket Dictionary and Thesaurus, American Edition, 1997, says the plural of an a is either As, or A's or a's. It does not list as because that would be ambiguous, and indistinguishable from the adverb... keith
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi, Two nations divided by a common language, I think. I'm certainly aware of the use of the apostrophe to indicate contractions. What we are taught is that there are 2 main uses for the apostrophe: to indicate possession, and to replace missing letters in contractions. There are one or 2 exceptions, and other fairly minor uses. The Oxford Guide to Style gives OK'ing, KO'd, OD's, SOS'ing as examples. For the record, I don't 'insist upon concrete rules of usage', and I'm in no way 'kind of ignorant of the multitudes of variation in such usage'. Issues like this are a matter of degree, and to some extent of culture. We already see the influence of text messaging on the way people write and spell. There are people who defend -'s as a plural using exactly your arguments who will get hot under the collar about CUL8R etc. Nobody can be 100% consistent in this. LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE WRITE ALL IN CAPITALS. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE BEFORE OTHERWISE MILD-MANNERED PEOPLE GET ANNOYED AT THAT and consider also all those people whove given up on punctuation and speling altogether and defend themselves with the claim that hey their getting thr msg across so fuck off dude its all about comunicatn anyway and you know what im saying without me having to follow all your rules whydoweevenbotherwithspacesbetweenwordsitworkedjustfinefortheromansitcanworkjustfineforussogetoffofmycase The important thing is to know when it is and isn't suitable to use something in different circumstances. One thing I think we can be fairly sure about is that you cannot go wrong if you stick to 'the rules'. But you can go wrong if you adopt the 'anything goes' approach. Imagine an undertaker addressing a grieving widow with Yo, bitch! Where's the stiff?. Perhaps there are some cultures where this would be acceptable, but an undertaker would be ill-advised to use it in all circumstances. Bob Friday, October 31, 2003, 3:47:04 PM, you wrote: Argh*, see why I started using MXen. Bob was there on rec.photo.equipment.35mm back in 1992-93. :) The problem with that thinking, Bob, is that the apostrophe is also used when leaving out letters: don't, o'clock, and MX's instead of MXes. Further the New Heritage Dictionary indicates that it is proper to form plurals of acronyms by adding 's to them. That makes two common usages that say MX's is proper. My experience with those who insist upon concrete rules of usage is that they are kind of ignorant of the multitudes of variation in such usage. There are no concrete rules, only generally accepted usage. The Oxford references always seems to try and be too rigid in their definitions. I usually use Strunk and White as my style manual as I like their simplified style. What I seldom use is what my school teachers taught me as I have discovered that they basically didn't have a clue and thus tried to reduce communications to stupid and conflicting rules. The only real rule in writing english is clear communication. If my readers understand what I meant then my style is good, if they do not then my style is bad. Since I am not a college professor nor a lawyer, impressing the reader with my erudition is quite far down on my writing style list. * Did I get the right number of a's? Or is that as, or aes, or... Oh, never mind! ;) (For anyone who cares the Oxford American Dictionary says a's or as, the New Heritage Dictionary says a's) ---
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi, Bob Walkden wrote: Here's how sad I am. snip I'm sadder than you. I am intrigued to find fedex in that list. Only comes out as a company name on Google. Quite a few Latin taxonomic terms in that list. I work at an academic institution that boasts in print of being a VI form College. Not a VI_th_ form How sad that we have so few students - or such large classes, as we have about 26,000 of the darlings. mike
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi, Friday, October 31, 2003, 5:50:23 PM, you wrote: I'm sadder than you. I am intrigued to find fedex in that list. Only comes out as a company name on Google. I saw that too. It's ok because people use fedex as a verb (Fedex it over to me for tomorrow) just as people use hoover (and google!) as a verb. I guess that means it's not a noun, so I should've taken it out. But of course, nominalization is my get out - What about yesterday's fedex? Where is it?. -- Cheers, Bobmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Paraphrased (plagiarized) from another source... Rare plural forms like oxen are left over from that period, with -en used for a very few words that fought off the encroachment of -s. The only other common plural in -en that survives in our modern language is brethren. This came from an older spelling of brother as brether, and lost the middle e. For a while both brothers and brethren meant the same thing, but the latter gradually shifted sense to refer to a spiritual relationship. At one time it was also used for professional relationships, and survives, for example, in Masonic usage. Photographers who love their LXen are brethren, both professionally and at heart. Regards, Bob... From: Collin Brendemuehl [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Look here for more info: http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm Check the section: Plurals and Apostrophes
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Bob W said: [...] So I made a list of words from some web dictionaries, stripped out everything except the nouns, took out compounds like 'tuckerbox', leaving 'box', and removed those which I know to be already plural (gateaux etc.). Although it's far from complete as a list of words it does seem to suggest that ox/oxen is unique. http://www.web-options.com/x-nouns.html Now let's have a discussion about more than one 'fellatrix'. Fellatrices for the latin inclined; alternatively, something that doesn't belong in a family list like this ;-) In a similar anatomical area, it's good to see that well-known term of endearment bollix on the list, but banjax doesn't belong: it's a verb. Okay, maybe I should go back to talking about camerae now ;-) -- Kristian
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi, Friday, October 31, 2003, 7:18:44 PM, you wrote: Paraphrased (plagiarized) from another source... Rare plural forms like oxen are left over from that period, with -en used for a very few words that fought off the encroachment of -s. The only other common plural in -en that survives in our modern language is brethren. This came from an older spelling of brother as brether, and lost the middle e. For a while both brothers and brethren meant the same thing, but the latter gradually shifted sense to refer to a spiritual relationship. At one time it was also used for professional relationships, and survives, for example, in Masonic usage. Photographers who love their LXen are brethren, both professionally and at heart. or possibly children...g -- Cheers, Bobmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
what do you ask for when you go into ComputerWorld to buy several small handheld pointing devices equipped with 2 or 3 eyes and connected to your computer by a thin grey tail? -- Cheers, Bobmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] pointing devices
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Thanks for that.. Was too lazy to make those 10 or so mouseclicks :) Cheers, Ryan From: graywolf [EMAIL PROTECTED] ibis ibis (ì´bîs) noun plural ibis or ibises 1. Any of various storklike wading birds of the family Threskiornithidae of temperate and tropical regions, having a long, slender, downward-curving bill. 2. The wood ibis. [Middle English ibin, from Latin ìbis, from Greek, from Egyptian hbj.] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution restricted in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved. --- Ryan Lee wrote: Going OT here, but always wanted to be sure what the plural of ibis was. I've heard ibises, ibes, ibii, ibex or just plain ibis etc.. As such I've resorted to an-apple-two-apples, an-ibis-two-birds.. :), Ryan in Brisbane (Ibisland) -- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway.
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
What style manual is that? graywolf wrote: Using an apostrophe when making the plural of an acronym is proper usage according to my style manual. Is MX an acronym?
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Supposedly Miniture refleX. Dan Matyola wrote: What style manual is that? graywolf wrote: Using an apostrophe when making the plural of an acronym is proper usage according to my style manual. Is MX an acronym? -- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway.
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
[EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb: Ok I finally have to ask why everyone here uses the term LXen when referring to their LX in plural. I must be slow but I can't for the life of me figure it out. LXes yes, it sounds right but LXen throws me every time. vic Hehe, sounds like derived from German grammar... ;-) Thomas
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ok I finally have to ask why everyone here uses the term LXen when referring to their LX in plural. For what it's worth, this has happened in computer circles as well. There's this classic computer architecture called the VAX, and it's tradition to speak of those machines plurally as VAXen. It is believed to be extrapolated from ox - oxen, possibly with the word vixen adding the extra bit of association needed to make it stick. See http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/V/VAXen.html, and note how the usage has begot box - boxen. Hackers love playing with language. With LX - LXen, it might be as simple as someone who's into both computers and photography starting to use it, and others liking it and copying the usage. -tih -- Tom Ivar Helbekkmo, Senior System Administrator, EUnet Norway www.eunet.no T: +47-22092958 M: +47-93013940 F: +47-22092901
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi, Wednesday, October 29, 2003, 4:40:11 AM, you wrote: Ok I finally have to ask why everyone here uses the term LXen when referring to their LX in plural. I must be slow but I can't for the life of me figure it out. LXes yes, it sounds right but LXen throws me every time. vic I've always assumed it's from a German way of forming plurals. How it became established I don't know. Perhaps it's because some English words ending in -x still form the plural that way. This is because Old English, like German, had several different ways of forming plurals, on of which is to add '-en' - child/children, tunge/tungan (tongue/tongues). The language has become simplified over the years. One way in which people learn to use an unfamiliar term is by analogy, for example children learn dog/dogs etc. and by analogy say man/mans, mouse/mouses etc. until they learn the correct forms. I think 'LXen' is an analogy with words ending in -x, like ox/oxen. However, I can't think of any more examples, so perhaps it's more of an analogy with German, where affing -n or -en is still common. Personally I think the plural should be LXs - not LXes or LX's (especially not LX's!) - because that is the normal way of doing it for abbreviations. I think of LX as an abbreviation, not as a word, even though it is really the Latin numeral for 60. If it was a word then LXes might be ok, as it is for 'foxes' and 'indexes'. Misguided people who think the plural of 'index' is 'indices' might prefer to call their LXs 'Lices'. -- Cheers, Bobmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Going OT here, but always wanted to be sure what the plural of ibis was. I've heard ibises, ibes, ibii, ibex or just plain ibis etc.. As such I've resorted to an-apple-two-apples, an-ibis-two-birds.. :), Ryan in Brisbane (Ibisland)
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Ok I finally have to ask why everyone here uses the term LXen when referring to their LX in plural. Can't really speak for everyone, but my _guess_ is that hackish plurals have crept into the list's memeset. Hackers (in the older sense of the word, not the security-crackers and kids who use 1eet 5p34k sense) often like to a) apply obscure and/or obsolete plurals based on a word's language of origin even when those are no longer in common use, and b) deliberately misapply those same endings to words which _sound_like_ the ones that actually take foreign plurals. Hence, since the plural of ox is oxen, the plural of Vax is Vaxen (natural and expected to the hackish ear) and occasionally the plural of box is boxen (deliberately silly but by no means unfamiliar or strange). LXen sounds like the same thing to me. I could, of course, be wrong about the reason for LXen. LXes yes, it sounds right but LXen throws me every time. There's the funny thing -- even though I can't recall ever having said LXen, it looks right to my eye and sounds almost-right aloud. OTOH, for me, cherubs looks just a little off 'cause I expect to see cherubim, Unixes for different flavours of Unix looks very wrong (I expect to read Unices or a longer phrase that avoids constructing a plural of Unix), data is plural, and various Greek- and Latin-derived words need -ai, -ae, -i, -a, or -oi plurals even when my dictionary tries to reassure me that an English -s or -es is considered acceptable. For me, LXes sounds right but looks wrong. But I'd never really thought about it carefully until this moment. -- Glenn PS: Yes, yes, if I saw two cars bearing the Lexus badge in a parking lot, I'd want to describe them as Lexi. PPS: For more clue regarding hackish use of language, the front-matter and appendices of _The_New_Hacker's_Dictionary_ would be quite useful. Entire text available online, too.
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Bob Walkden wrote: Personally I think the plural should be LXs - not LXes or LX's Elsewhere I commented that LXes looks wrong to me and LXen doesn't. Figured I should amend that to say that LXs also doesn't look wrong to me, for the same reason you gave (that LX, whether it is one or not, _looks_ like an abbreviation). Misguided people who think the plural of 'index' is 'indices' might prefer to call their LXs 'Lices'. Misguided? Indices *is* correct for more than one index. (So is indexes.) My _Webster's_ doesn't distinguish between the two, but I've noticed that there does seem to be some gradual divergence of the two, at least in the US, where in some contexts (multiple look-things-up tables in a book) indices sounds old and stuffy, but in others (multiple statistical indicators) indexes sounds wrong. I don't think usage has diverged quite far enough for either of those to _be_ wrong, but I get the impression that there's a slow movement in that direction. -- Glenn PS: For real fun, there's the problem of what to say when you have more than one mongoose. Mongeese is tempting, but so is polygoose. :-P
RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Thanks Tom I must have missed that discussion. Vic This is archived somewhere. We actually had a fairly lengthy thread on what name we wanted to use for plural LX. We just liked the way LXen sounded. Cesar, do you remember this?
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
a vixen is a female fox not plural. a male fox is a dog fox. Christian Skofteland [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Collin Brendemuehl [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 10:13 AM Subject: RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen Since some men in the group seem to treat their cameras better than their women (and may even find them more attractive) ... Was it not akin to fox/vixen? :)
RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Ah now that makes sense.. Thanks guys... Vic Since some men in the group seem to treat their cameras better than their women (and may even find them more attractive) ... Was it not akin to fox/vixen?
RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
It was a few years ago. tv -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 10:33 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen Thanks Tom I must have missed that discussion. Vic This is archived somewhere. We actually had a fairly lengthy thread on what name we wanted to use for plural LX. We just liked the way LXen sounded. Cesar, do you remember this?
RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
No, no, no, you got it all wrong! :-) LXen is just the third-person plural for LX. When referring to particular LX items you say, I have one LX with my name engraved on the lens. or, I have two LXs with snake skin shutter curtains. or even, Those gold-plated LXs on his table are under-priced at $10,000 each. But when referring to the population of LX cameras, you use the third-person plural, as in, Yes, LXen are well respected cameras, except for their low-light metering characteristics. It's just that simple! (tm) :-) - THaller
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi, Wednesday, October 29, 2003, 2:37:52 PM, you wrote: This is archived somewhere. We actually had a fairly lengthy thread on what name we wanted to use for plural LX. We just liked the way LXen sounded. Cesar, do you remember this? shouldn't that be Hoc meminis, Caesar? g -- Cheers, Bobmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi, Wednesday, October 29, 2003, 1:32:29 PM, you wrote: Roman numerals are not abbreviations. V is not short for anything in Latin. You must have missed the following sentence from my post: I think of LX as an abbreviation, not as a word, even though it is really the Latin numeral for 60. Bob Hi, Wednesday, October 29, 2003, 4:40:11 AM, you wrote: Ok I finally have to ask why everyone here uses the term LXen when referring to their LX in plural. I must be slow but I can't for the life of me figure it out. LXes yes, it sounds right but LXen throws me every time. vic I've always assumed it's from a German way of forming plurals. How it became established I don't know. Perhaps it's because some English words ending in -x still form the plural that way. This is because Old English, like German, had several different ways of forming plurals, on of which is to add '-en' - child/children, tunge/tungan (tongue/tongues). The language has become simplified over the years. One way in which people learn to use an unfamiliar term is by analogy, for example children learn dog/dogs etc. and by analogy say man/mans, mouse/mouses etc. until they learn the correct forms. I think 'LXen' is an analogy with words ending in -x, like ox/oxen. However, I can't think of any more examples, so perhaps it's more of an analogy with German, where affing -n or -en is still common. Personally I think the plural should be LXs - not LXes or LX's (especially not LX's!) - because that is the normal way of doing it for abbreviations. I think of LX as an abbreviation, not as a word, even though it is really the Latin numeral for 60. If it was a word then LXes might be ok, as it is for 'foxes' and 'indexes'. Misguided people who think the plural of 'index' is 'indices' might prefer to call their LXs 'Lices'.
RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
If I remember correctly there was a discussion here about the plural form of LX. I paid close attention being that I think I had four at the time. The general consensus came out to be LXen. I think it was due to the sound of it. When not in constant use my LXen reside in their own Pentax bag with all pertinent LX-specific accessories. With five LXen, two snake-skinned, Cesar Panama City, Florida -- -Original Message- -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 11:40 PM -- To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Subject: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen -- -- -- Ok I finally have to ask why everyone here uses the term -- LXen when referring -- to their LX in plural. I must be slow but I can't for the -- life of me figure it -- out. LXes yes, it sounds right but LXen throws me every time. -- vic --
RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
That should be, ...especially for their low-light metering characteristics. From: Haller, Thomas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] plural, as in, Yes, LXen are well respected cameras, except for their low-light metering characteristics.
RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
I cannot be responsible for your strange ways of thinking. From: Bob Walkden [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi, Wednesday, October 29, 2003, 1:32:29 PM, you wrote: Roman numerals are not abbreviations. V is not short for anything in Latin. You must have missed the following sentence from my post: I think of LX as an abbreviation, not as a word, even though it is really the Latin numeral for 60. Bob
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
what do you ask for when you go into ComputerWorld to buy several small handheld pointing devices equipped with 2 or 3 eyes and connected to your computer by a thin grey tail? Mousen
RE: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi Bob! ...plural, as in, Yes, LXen are well respected cameras, except for their low-light metering characteristics. That should be, ...especially for their low-light metering characteristics. If you read the other grammatical examples, I think you'll see the light (pun intentional. :-) Or at least I hope so. - THaller
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
You must have missed the following sentence from my post: I think of LX as an abbreviation, not as a word, even though it is really the Latin numeral for 60. Bob As good an explanation as any I can think for why they named it the LX -- 60. Pentax headquarters seems to have a fascination with combining add letters and numbers. Not using any numbering system or sequential order that I can figure out. OTOH, I wonder if one does a straight translation from Japanese to English of some numbers what they come out as? Or maybe they just take something like scrabble tiles (also tiles with numbers), shake 'em in a cup and pour them out. Marnie aka Doe ;-) Which is also as good explanation as any.
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: As good an explanation as any I can think for why they named it the LX -- 60. Pentax headquarters seems to have a fascination with combining add letters and numbers. Not using any numbering system or sequential order that I can figure out. It's not so hard to figure out in this case. The LX was released in the year of Pentax's 60th anniversary -- hence the choice of name. -tih -- Tom Ivar Helbekkmo, Senior System Administrator, EUnet Norway www.eunet.no T: +47-22092958 M: +47-93013940 F: +47-22092901
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Hi, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You must have missed the following sentence from my post: I think of LX as an abbreviation, not as a word, even though it is really the Latin numeral for 60. Bob As good an explanation as any I can think for why they named it the LX -- 60. Pentax headquarters seems to have a fascination with combining add letters and numbers. Not using any numbering system or sequential order that I can figure out. It was produced first in Pentax's 60th year of existence. A good combination of historical pride and cute name, in my opinion. mike
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Pentax headquarters seems to have a fascination with combining add letters and numbers. Not using any numbering system or sequential order that I can figure out. It was produced first in Pentax's 60th year of existence. A good combination of historical pride and cute name, in my opinion. mike Makes me wonder if we'll see an Asahi Pentax C DJE
Re: Long and OT - inkhorn terms ( was Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Like he said. Stan Bob Walkden wrote: Hi, Wednesday, October 29, 2003, 10:01:35 AM, you wrote: Going OT here, but always wanted to be sure what the plural of ibis was. I've heard ibises, ibes, ibii, ibex or just plain ibis etc.. As such I've resorted to an-apple-two-apples, an-ibis-two-birds.. the New Oxford dictionary gives you a choice of one: ibises. Ibex is a different animal altogether - a goat, not a bird. The English plural is 'ibexes'. You can often treat words denoting animals as mass nouns, particular when you're eating the animals in question. For instance, you could serve ibex or ibis to 100 or so of your closest friends. If the proportions were not miserly this would constitute more than one ibex or ibis. The other possibilities you list - ibes, ibii - are just confusion. My guess is that in normal speech most people would say 'ibises'. However, if they're writing, or being particularly aware of what they say, they may make an effort to be 'correct' or to sound educated. This leads people to make gross mistakes such as 'ibii', 'stati', 'statii' (or recently 'virii'). Relatively few people know Latin, but are familiar with words like radius/radii, focus/foci from school mathematics, they use analogy to try and form the plural of similar words, but often succeed only in failing. This is a hangover from 16th century England when the use of Latin loan-words was taken to be a sign of social superiority, and there was a lot of ostentatious use of such words, called 'inkhorn terms' because of the association of education and inkhorns (ink wells). In Latin nouns are classified into 5 declensions, and some of the declensions are further sub-divided into groups. These declensions and groups reflect the different forms the words take according to their function in a clause. In particular, the plural forms are different in these declensions. Typically you can recognise the declension of a noun from the way the nominative singular ends. So normally a word ending in -a is 1st declension (plural -ae), -us is 2nd declension (plural -i). The most common 3rd declension ending is -is, plural -es, but the 3rd declension has several sub-categories. Confusingly for generations of schoolboys, the nominative singular in the 4th decelension is -us, like the 2nd declension, but the nominative plural is also -us, but with a long 'u'. Virus, focus and radius are 2nd declension, so the Latin nominative plurals are viri (NOT 'virii'), foci (NOT 'focii') and radii (yes!) respectively. But status is 4th declension, so the Latin nominative plural is also status - NOT 'stati' or 'statii'. Ibis is 3rd declension, group I, feminine. The nominative plural is ibes. Ibex and index are (I think) 3rd declension group II, so the nominative plurals are respectively ibices and indices. These are all common loan words in English. But remember, we're speaking English, not Latin. We don't have to conform to Latin grammar, and indeed in most cases (pun intended) we don't. Latin nouns have case endings. So if we wanted to talk about something belonging to several ibises, say their wings, we would say 'alae ibium', 'ibium' being the genitive plural. We never find that the people who insist on the 'correct plural' also insist on this equally 'correct' plural. That's because we speak English, not Latin. English is very simple in its construction of plurals - add 's' or 'es' to the end of the word, with a small number of exceptions. English has a long tradition of loan words from other languages, yet it seems to be only in the Latin and Greek ones - the prestige languages of centuries past - that some people expect us to conform to their grammar. I hope the absurdity of this is obvious. Why don't these people also insist on all the correct case endings, why is it just the nominative and the plural? Why not the ablative singular, or the vocative? Why don't they insist on agreement between adjesctives and nouns? Why don't they insist on the correct forms for other languages we've plundered, such as Norse, Australian, Algonquin, Basque, Spanish, Inuit and so on? So, bearing in mind that we speak English, let's use the English plural forms for these inkhorn terms: virus - viruses status - statuses focus - focuses ibis - ibises ibex - ibexes virus - viruses index - indexes (I might forgive indices in technical documents) radius - radiuses (I might forgive radii in mathematics) Twix - Twixes People who say things like 'virii', 'statii' etc. are trying to second-guess Latin grammar without knowing what they're doing. It doesn't make them look educated. Far from it. Better to stick with the known quantity of English plurals.
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
- Original Message - From: Vic Subject: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen Ok I finally have to ask why everyone here uses the term LXen when referring to their LX in plural. I must be slow but I can't for the life of me figure it out. LXes yes, it sounds right but LXen throws me every time. Not a clue. I hate the term. I prefer the fleet to describe mine. Plural of LX is LXs. As in, I have three LXs. William Robb
Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen
Could it be like ox and oxen? Rgds, Ryan - Original Message - From: William Robb [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 2:44 PM Subject: Re: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen - Original Message - From: Vic Subject: Ok I finally got to ask why LXen Ok I finally have to ask why everyone here uses the term LXen when referring to their LX in plural. I must be slow but I can't for the life of me figure it out. LXes yes, it sounds right but LXen throws me every time. Not a clue. I hate the term. I prefer the fleet to describe mine. Plural of LX is LXs. As in, I have three LXs. William Robb
