Spelling pedants -- your votes required!

[frogs]

Dd1 (9) has been sent home with a spelling list that gives the plural of 'gateau' as 'gateaus'.

Being a clever-clogs know-all, she apparently informed the teacher that she'd looked it up in the dictionary, and the plural was actually 'gateaux'. Teacher maintains the normal spelling is the -s one, with the -x spelling as an unusual alternative. Dd1 is spitting tacks.

Who do you think is right? Your votes, please.

sorry frogs, crossed posts. Sounds like your dd is very bright and very bored. How about encouraging her to get in involved some other afterschool activities (clubs, volunteer programs etc.) that are more productive than harrassing her poor year 5 teacher (who's probably completely overworked and has no energy to deal with the bright students ...unfortunately for your dd).

Haven't all french words been banned in the usa anyway, expatkat.

Kat's right. We wouldn't have any idea what a gateau was, never mind the plural, and gateaux does look pretentious to me. BUT, the teacher should have admitted that that was an alternative way of spelling it, and maybe even used it to start a discussion about different spellings in different languages, or about English words which come from other languages.

Right Sofia. We don't have french toast and french fries anymore, it's freedom toast and freedom fries, at least in the US Capitol. Totally ridiculous!

I have answered on the other thread, ks - actually I lied there and said I didn't do Latin; in fact I did do it, for a year, but so spectacularly badly my exam result was even worse than for German..I think I got about 12%...

(Better than geometry though, one year I got 3% for that. I must have spelt my name right.)

Anyway I am no help at all - down with skool - and will skip off saying hello sky again.

I did Latin O level but cannot remember a word of it.

I think it's like criteria same in plural. Bit weird though isn't it - shouldn't really be classed as a noun - how can you say, oh look there's another rememberthatyoushalldie (the "memento" is an imperative, not a noun)

it's the imperative singular of meminisse (to remember)

well the weird thing is, given its grammatical shape now, the only pluralising you could do of it is to turn it into "remember (addressed to several) that ye shall die" instead of (as it is) "remember (addressed to one) that thou shalt die"

trying to think of a parallel, where we use a phrase sort of collectively like a noun

raison d'etre isn't a good one as you can pluralise it

will post when I do, if you're not snoring by then

The teacher's attitude reminds me of a Primary 3 or 4 teacher (I think that equates to Year 2 or 3 in England) who told me I was making up the wrod when I asked her how to spell "leotard"! Just 'cos she didn't know what it was. Anyway, I worked it out for myself!

It's a shame - because it quite understandably decreases the child's respect for the teacher - and the value that they CAN offer. It just takes one bad apple to turn a child off from learning.

PS BTW - I would have gone for "gateaux" too - but then, I do have a French degree! And at the "singular" criteria!

oh by the way, yes I agree it gets used as a noun, and I think that's fine, on the basic principle of its being a great concept of which there's no better formulation

anyway, the received practice (when using it in English) does seem to be to use the exact same form for the singular as for the plural

(continuing on the death's head theme, not the black forest pudding)

The only other one (borrowed-phrase-not-a-noun-but-used-as-one) I can think of is "post mortem". But's that more assimilated already, so people do say post mortems without uproar ... or does that sound wrong?

and did you know the correct way to ask for Italian style coffee is two cappuccini please ? I too am a pedant about spellings and plurals.Lots of commentators referred to stadiums during the Olympics while I sat and seethed about the fact it should be stadia.....I need to get a life. But GATEAUS???? please....

Would you call more than one of the people who conduct seances media, I wonder? (Not just you, donnie - pedants in general!) Come to that, should the "s" on the end of seances be pronounced?

And if not, why not...hasn't stadium really become an English word in the same way as plateau (and that sort of medium)? I know some commentators do say stadia but that always sounds terribly nitpicky.

I love English. It's so fraught!

Was just as shocked as everyone else to see gateaus given as acceptable spelling in Chambers. Never, ever, seen it in print.
Have you come up with an explanation for dd? Maybe acknowledging that her teacher is being a bit silly, because grown-ups are, sometimes?
I still burn with indignation thinking of the teacher who marked me down, aged four, because when she asked how many fingers I had I said eight. Well how was I to know the stupid mare didn't know the difference between fingers and toes?

Or fingers and thumbs even?

Yup!

ROFL at this thread!

If it matters any more, x for me, although like ks I don't use the word as it's poncey.

I imagine the s spelling is a US one.

On a related note, what is the plural of "chaise longue" - "chaises longues" or "chaise longues" ? Before anyone asks, yes, I'm using that spelling by the frankly appalling "chaise lounge". Sometimes if I'm unsure of a spelling or usage I just check Google to see which is more common, but in this case Google (and therefore worldwide public opinion) is wrong.

haven't read the others but I'd say gateauX now will read to see if that was the consensus!

I see most other people thought the same. Silly woman but frogs, I agree with others that your dd might pick her battles. I also think though that I would have fought about this one at her age - I'm still spitting at the memory of my English teacher disagreeing with my conclusions in an essay about Brideshead Revisited when I was about 14. I worked so hard on it and I was right dammit!