An Irrelevant Dilemma and an Irrelevant Linguistic Mystery

This post really doesn't have anything to do with sex-ed in Montgomery County. Well, that fight seems to be about over, there's nothing really to talk about this week, just a little background noise and some attempted low blows, nothing to get excited about. Yet. So here're a couple of thoughts I'm having.

First, sympathize with my son, the 17-year-old, who snatched the new Harry Potter book out of his dear mother's hands and ran to his room, where he read the whole thing the day it came out. Then, sometime after midnight on Saturday night (Sunday morning, some of you call it, but I don't), he sort of staggered around the house, saying, "Man, that was good. A lot of stuff happens." Totally distracted, going over all the details of the plot in his head, realizing how different parts were set up in the early chapters, why somebody did this or that. But - ha! - there was nobody to talk to about it! Who died? He knew, couldn't tell anybody. How's it end? Couldn't say. That was tough. Of course, the next day his sister stayed up late and read it, so now they can talk, but not in front of Mom, who's on the sofa trying to sneak a peek as I write this.

It just seems like a funny dilemma, everybody in the world is reading that book, but Q: When you're the first one to finish it, where do you go? Who can you talk to? A: Nowhere. Nobody.

Then, a totally unrelated topic. You have a mouse on your computer. If you went to the store and there were a bunch of them on the shelf, would you say to the salesperson, "How much are your mice?" Or would you say, "How much are your mouses?"

It seems to me that people say the latter, they say "mouses," and I find that very interesting. OK, the batter flied out, it wasn't that he flew out to right field, I get that one. He doesn't really fly. But how do we decide whether to follow the standard linguistic rule for making a plural out of mouse? A computer mouse is obviously called that because it's about the same size as a regular mouse, it isn't an entirely different concept. So why are two of them "mouses?"

Or are they?

Ah check this poll out.

And THIS.

More from Mother Tongue Annoyances.

<stroking_chin_thoughtfully> The always erudite Language Log NOTES that:

"Sometimes, a morphologically-irregular word form becomes regularized when the word is used in a new way:

Factories churn out Barbies, Mickey Mouses (*Mickey Mice) and Ninja Turtles."

Oh, great -- Mickey Mouses.

Well, yes ...