Campaign for etymologically correct plurals and singulars?

[asicsgirl]

I just found myself in a cafe physically unable to order 'a panini'. Usually I get round this by ordering something else, but today I ordered a panino! And was proud...

I know that loan words become Anglicised and lose their 'foreign' characteristics over time (e.g. 'forums' is more common now than 'fora' and there are many other examples), but some of the more recent additions to English (like 'panini') seem to be missing out on their rightful stage of being inflected as they are in the mother tongue.

Someone wrote in to the Guardian a while ago about how pleased they were to hear a guy in a newsagent ask for 'two Magna'. My kind of chap...

Anyone with me?

PMSL at this thread!

(I love that despite all this the OED AskOxford website sells 'Dictionaries and Thesauruses' )

Why the parentheses, MrsB? Surely this is the place where pedants can be out and proud'?

because it was an aside to the original thread, I suppose

I suspect I overuse them

Please insert my missing inverted comma for me when you read that...

I also overuse parentheses (I just like them). I also probably overuse ellipses...

Now we are getting OT.

ellipses are one thing, but give me a syllepsis any day
[posts in a hurry and a new blouse )

I went shopping in Oxford yesterday, and when we stopped for lunch I ordered two cappuccini. The (non-Italian) guy didn't turn a hair. It's quite possible that there are a lot of pedants in Oxford!

Did anyone see "Christina: a Medieval Life" the other night, when the lovely and very correct Michael Wood referred to "these graffiti"?

Well done Sanguine. Striking a blow for pedants everywhere.

Iorek, we've just finished watching it. I actually gave the dear man a clap when he did it, earning myself a Look from DH.