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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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/me ridicules "sortcohort"  I thought about this when it first appeared and couldn't come up with anything, not that that means much given my brain raddled with port and age: the term in linguistics is collective noun. However, if we want an onym (an onymonym?) for it, let's go for ochlonym, from ochlos 'crowd'. (Already present in another fun word, ochlocracy = mob-rule.)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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All hail NicholasW for his masterful achievement: "ochlonym" says it very well. I see no way it could be bettered.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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and what about word, that are normally plural, say pajamas, alway worn, and bought in the plural, but if you are a teen age girl, you have a pajama party.. when you want to express the plural (lots of pajamas, at a party) the word become singular...
or am i wrong, did pajamas come to us from the hindu with the s as part of the word?--I think not, because pajama is also used for half a pajamas-- (she wore his pajama top as a nightshirt...)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Notice that pyjama in pyjama party or pyjama top is being used as an adjective to describe the party or top, rather than as a noun in its own right. Adjectives in English not having singular and plural forms, the s is dropped.
As to whether its etymon had an s or not, perhaps Avy can help.
Bingley
Bingley
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stranger
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stranger
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The British usage annoys me to no end. I attribute it to an incapacity for abstraction.
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addict
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The British usage annoys me to no end. I attribute it to an incapacity for abstraction.Welcome to the board, deanjens. I have just noticed a couple of posts from you today. I presume you mean the aforementioned treatment of collective nouns as plural. Firstly let me say that, in my experience, we Brits treat them as plural or singular depending on context. That is if the collective noun is shorthand for "members of the group" then it is plural; if it is shorthand for "the group, acting as one", then it is singular. This difference is more obvious in some contexts than others. In both the examples given (and without any other context) I would have used the singular. Any other Brits care to comment? As such I think we abstract fairly well Rod
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pyjamas is British spelling, pajamas US. Wha do aou ysk?
Rod
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