Blogtrek

The Plural of Mouse

Here is another Google game. Search for "plural of mouse is *" -mice. If the plural of mouse is not mice, then what is it? The most frequent answer I got from Google's search of Web sites was meeces. A lot of us are still hung up on the old Trixie, Dixie and Jinxie cartoons, as in "I hates those meeces to pieces!". The first answer I got was irregular. Well, yes, mouse does have an irregular plural. I also got mouses. Several sites insist that the plural of a computer mouse is mouses. This is because a computer mouse is not a tiny mammal, the one that cats go for. It may not be, but it certainly got its name from its resemblance to this creature: the eyes on the front, the general shape, and the corded tail. So in my opinion the plural of a computer mouse is mice. Another plural I found was rats. Not one site said that it was meece. A coworker of mine from 15 years ago, who subsequently died in an automobile accident, said in a newsletter that he distributed that the plural of a computer mouse was "mousi". My favorite plural, though, among the plurals that turned up in the search, was mousies. There's a whole bunch of mousies in this housie!