Heh, was waiting for someone to point that out :)
For the record, so does Oxford English dictionary - and on reconsideration, I should have been more clear. Indexes are very much
"allowed" these days a plural of Index when not used in a technical sense, but (and this is a big but), this is due to vernacular
morphing, not root meaning - i.e. the other form has become acceptable because of a relaxing of a rule since so many people use it
differently, but the Latin root word is still "Indic" found as the root for other words such as "Indicate" etc.
Other words facing the same sort of scrutiny are Vertex (pl. Vertices vs. Vertexes) or Apex (pl. Apices vs. Apexes) but of these,
Indexes seem far more used. I'm a pedant though, and just because everyone uses it wrong does not convince me of using it wrong too
- but one can't really argue with MW or Oxford on this - so, whatever you feel like then!
As an aside, there are other similar Latin origin words that have become acceptable when Englishified, such as "Crematoria" which
may now be called "Crematoriums" and of course the very widely used "Forums" which used to be "Fora".
All this said, when used in Mathematical/Technical environments (such as SQL), it must still be "Indices" and not "Indexes", even if
the Wall-street Journal allows the other form!
Some more reading for the astute or interested:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/index
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ind2.htm
On 2014/02/01 13:43, Richard Hipp wrote:
On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 5:59 AM, RSmith <rsm...@rsweb.co.za
<mailto:rsm...@rsweb.co.za>> wrote:
I know this is a Database forum (as opposed to a language forum) but kindly
allow me a quick interjection here since I have
met this question many times, as posed by Scott in a forum question:
On 2014/02/01 06:01, Scott Robison wrote:
Exerpt: ...// *and* information that led to creation of ideal indexes
(indices?). //...
The plural of Index is always "Indices", never "Indexes".
Merriam-Webster disagrees.
--
D. Richard Hipp
d...@sqlite.org <mailto:d...@sqlite.org>
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