Plural of s = s'es?

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Yoong Liat

#499421 Fri, 11 Apr 08 05:32 PM

There are other languages with their own alphabet, but I don't know how many languages have alphabets. Perhaps another member can enlighten me. Mandarin has no alphabet.

Yoong Liat

Joined on Mon, Sep 4 2006

Singapore

Veteran Member (5,609)

Yoong Liat

Plurals

Yoong Liat

#499426 Fri, 11 Apr 08 05:48 PM

Anyway, why we need a plural for PS? A postscript is a short remark. Although it is possible that the "short" remark is not that short and may have more than one paragraph, it is still one short remark. Two paragraphs don't make it two postscripts. I was told that an additional PS added after the original PS is PPS - Post-Postscript. (Post-postscript.)

The plural of 'postscript' is 'postscripts'. (Collin Cobuild English Dictionary for Advanced Learners)

If there is more than one letter, each with a postscript, then we have to say 'postscipts'.

Yoong Liat

Plurals, Paragraphs

Pter

#499592 Sat, 12 Apr 08 02:08 AM

Yes, I understand that. But this usage would be very rare and most likely not in shortform.

We don't use Mandarin to refer to the Chinese language. Mandarin is one spoken dialect of the Chinese language, albeit the official one and is taught all over the country. It refers to the spoken language, not the writing. The PinYin system commonly used for Mandarin is a way to transliterate the sound.

I suppose most languages are based on alphabetical systems. Chinese and only a handful are exceptions.

Pter

Joined on Wed, Nov 28 2007

Hong Kong

Full Member (416)

Plurals, Dialects

Yoong Liat

#499641 Sat, 12 Apr 08 09:02 AM

Pter
Yes, I understand that. But this usage would be very rare and most likely not in shortform.

We don't use Mandarin to refer to the Chinese language. Mandarin is one spoken dialect of the Chinese language, albeit the official one and is taught all over the country. It refers to the spoken language, not the writing. The PinYin system commonly used for Mandarin is a way to transliterate the sound.

It refers to the spoken language, not the writing. (Could you please elaborate on this? I believe Mandarin is the official Chinese dialect, both written and spoken.)

Yoong Liat

Plurals, Dialects

Pter

#499706 Sat, 12 Apr 08 01:24 PM

The Chinese language has many dialects. We all share the same set of characters but these characters are pronounced differently in different dialects. Same characters different pronunciations. We don't say the characters belong to any one particular dialect. They are just Chinese characters. You can't say Mandarin characters or Cantonese characters because these terms do not make sense. For example, the numbers one, two, three are written as one, two, and three horizontal strokes respectively in Chinese "一二三" (can you see these characters?) They are pronounced as yi1 er4 san1 in Mandarin and jat7 ji6 sam1 in Cantonese. These are not exact transliteration though. Chinese is a tonal language and the numbers are used to indicate the tone. Mandarin has four tones while Cantonese has nine (some say six depending on which method you use to indicate the tones). So, everyone can read the same Chinese book but they read them differently.

Pter

Plurals, Numbers, Dialects

Pter

#500484 Mon, 14 Apr 08 09:50 AM

The transliteration mentioned above is only used for teaching the Chinese language. They are not used in real communications like newspaper, letters, books or anything written normally, except Children's book or textbooks for primary students. There are only several hundred sounds in Mandarin but there are tens of thousand of Chinese characters. That's why it is not possible to "Romanize" the Chinese language and replace the Chinese characters by the Roman transliteration.

Pter

Plurals

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