Oy page. In a HAUNted house, humans go see scary human demises; in a HUNted house, animals go see scary animal demises. Foie gras is scary to ducks, (hunting) trophies are scary to deers.
@ Olivier – Just some nitpicky grammar trivia: in English, “deer” is one of the relatively rare exceptions that remains unchanged when turned into the plural form. One deer, many deer. (The same applies to “fish”). For “duck”, it depends on who is speaking. Normal people would say “I see three ducks“, but a hunter might say “I shot a lot of duck.”
I am not sure having a duck as the in-charge host works… is it “his” trophy room? Did he really hunt stuff? No probably not. And, of course, haunted houses visited by human tourists have other real humans as tour guides and not genuine ghosts & monsters. But somehow this doesn’t ring true. Maybe it is because of the deer characters… if all the characters had been ducks and geese, or all been deer, then that might have felt more plausible to me (I recognise this is an odd deployment of the term “plausible” but you know what I mean).
Oh, deer !
@Kilby, in “shot a lot of duck” the word is not used as the plural, but rather as the collective.
I think the above is technically wrong, and “duck” is being treated as a noncount noun, actually.
narmitaj: It’s a duck dressed up as a human hunter. I don’t see this is any different than normal human haunted houses where, as you say, the human tour guide might be dressed up as a monster, despite actually being a human.
@ carlfink – You may be right, but I was remembering a comment in an article about irregular plurals, which specifically mentioned variant usage among hunters (the same kind of “special terminology” exists among German hunters, they use terms and forms not found among non-hunters).
P.S. Sorry, that link was suppose to go to the referenced location and not the footnote. See the paragraph below the list.
Both deer and deers are acceptable forms of the plural for deer.
It depends on which authority one cites. Neither the “American Heritage” nor the “Concise OED” lists the “regular” plural, they both give the “invariant” plural as the only option.
P.S. Please don’t take that as an argument for “prescriptivist” grammar: I rather like the comment by Eric Partridge (as cited in Wikipedia), who described the growth of invariant forms as “snob plurals”.
Since the plural “deers” appears in multiple dictionaries, I assume that it’s normal usage for some population of English speakers. However, I’ve never heard it before, and it sounds wrong to me, even from a “descriptivist” viewpoint.
“Since the plural “deers” appears in multiple dictionaries”
Deers might be appropriate if you’re talking about different kinds of deer. If you have 5 white-tailed deer, and 5 black-tailed deer, but 35 pink-tailed deer, then the pink-tailed deer are doing better than the other kinds of deers.
I was thinking along the same line as James (parallel to fish/fishes, people/peoples), but even then it still looks wrong to me.
$10 seems like a lot of money for ducks and deerdeers these animals to scrape up.
Or from Dr. Suess (in “McElligot’s Pool”): “… with your worms and your wishes, you’ll grow a long beard, long before you catch fishes.”
P.S. And similarly, in “The Grinch”: “Then he did the same in the other Whos’ houses, leaving crumbs much too small for the other Whos’ mouses.“
I had to explain “people” and “peoples” to a person for whom English was a second language. One person (singular) was in the lobby and three people (plural) were still outside. The Jewish people and many other peoples of the world were represented at the conference. But unlike most collective nouns (the audience was waiting, the crowd was angry), “the Jewish people” seems to be plural: “The Jewish people has a distinctive culture” doesn’t sound right.
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Oy page. In a HAUNted house, humans go see scary human demises; in a HUNted house, animals go see scary animal demises. Foie gras is scary to ducks, (hunting) trophies are scary to deers.
@ Olivier – Just some nitpicky grammar trivia: in English, “deer” is one of the relatively rare exceptions that remains unchanged when turned into the plural form. One deer, many deer. (The same applies to “fish”). For “duck”, it depends on who is speaking. Normal people would say “I see three ducks“, but a hunter might say “I shot a lot of duck.”
I am not sure having a duck as the in-charge host works… is it “his” trophy room? Did he really hunt stuff? No probably not. And, of course, haunted houses visited by human tourists have other real humans as tour guides and not genuine ghosts & monsters. But somehow this doesn’t ring true. Maybe it is because of the deer characters… if all the characters had been ducks and geese, or all been deer, then that might have felt more plausible to me (I recognise this is an odd deployment of the term “plausible” but you know what I mean).
Oh, deer !
@Kilby, in “shot a lot of duck” the word is not used as the plural, but rather as the collective.
I think the above is technically wrong, and “duck” is being treated as a noncount noun, actually.
narmitaj: It’s a duck dressed up as a human hunter. I don’t see this is any different than normal human haunted houses where, as you say, the human tour guide might be dressed up as a monster, despite actually being a human.
@ carlfink – You may be right, but I was remembering a comment in an article about irregular plurals, which specifically mentioned variant usage among hunters (the same kind of “special terminology” exists among German hunters, they use terms and forms not found among non-hunters).
P.S. Sorry, that link was suppose to go to the referenced location and not the footnote. See the paragraph below the list.
Both deer and deers are acceptable forms of the plural for deer.
https://grammarist.com/plurals/deer-vs-deers/
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deer
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/deer
It depends on which authority one cites. Neither the “American Heritage” nor the “Concise OED” lists the “regular” plural, they both give the “invariant” plural as the only option.
P.S. Please don’t take that as an argument for “prescriptivist” grammar: I rather like the comment by Eric Partridge (as cited in Wikipedia), who described the growth of invariant forms as “snob plurals”.
Since the plural “deers” appears in multiple dictionaries, I assume that it’s normal usage for some population of English speakers. However, I’ve never heard it before, and it sounds wrong to me, even from a “descriptivist” viewpoint.
“Since the plural “deers” appears in multiple dictionaries”
Deers might be appropriate if you’re talking about different kinds of deer. If you have 5 white-tailed deer, and 5 black-tailed deer, but 35 pink-tailed deer, then the pink-tailed deer are doing better than the other kinds of deers.
I was thinking along the same line as James (parallel to fish/fishes, people/peoples), but even then it still looks wrong to me.
$10 seems like a lot of money for ducks and
deerdeersthese animals to scrape up.I like “fisheses” as per Gollum. https://www.flickr.com/photos/apurdam/7287188278/
Or from Dr. Suess (in “McElligot’s Pool”): “… with your worms and your wishes, you’ll grow a long beard, long before you catch fishes.”
P.S. And similarly, in “The Grinch”: “Then he did the same in the other Whos’ houses, leaving crumbs much too small for the other Whos’ mouses.“
I had to explain “people” and “peoples” to a person for whom English was a second language. One person (singular) was in the lobby and three people (plural) were still outside. The Jewish people and many other peoples of the world were represented at the conference. But unlike most collective nouns (the audience was waiting, the crowd was angry), “the Jewish people” seems to be plural: “The Jewish people has a distinctive culture” doesn’t sound right.