Quote:
Originally Posted by cassidym
Correct. It was reportedly invented by a group of young upper middle class men in Boston in the early 1800's.
Meanwhile, there was a big linguistic battle in Britain after the French invaded in 1066 over how to form the plural. English is basically a Germanic language and they form the plural by adding 'en' to a word (ex., one haus, two hausen etc). The French add 's' and after 1066 the 's' caught on in the countryside while the 'en' held sway in the cities. Yet, the countryside won this one so effectively that there is only one word in the English language that is pluralized by adding 'en'.
It's a very common word, do you know what it is?
|
Boxen?
(OK, so my initial though was oxen as the plural of ox, but not sure that counts as very common...)
Edit:
Children
which does make two plurals ending in en...