Toyota announces that the Plural of Prius is Prii

Hi Dear,
Priii indeed. That is major league pretentious. I love walri, however. My mind races with other nerd plurals now. Can you get downtown on one bus, or two bii? Would you and your sister be one cute pair of geniii or what?
There is a Floral Nursery in Indy whose sign has a readerboard attached. One of those signs where you take a pole and slide letters into a track to form messages, y’know? Well, one day they sent the WRONG person out there to change the message. This person didn’t know the plural of “Peony.” I drove by there one day, and there for all the world to see, was the message, “FRESH CUT PENIS.” I crossed my legs so fast that I came off the clutch and missed a shift….True story; I don’t do fiction. Fact is too funny.
xoxodc

Priora! I very much do like that indeed! And I do strongly believe that we should say a Ferrarous and a Lamborghinous when we own only one of these babies! Yess! Forsooth! That IS what the fast talking car salesman should say! Words are never ridiculii or pretentiora when used properly! NEVER! That IS the way it should be!

Ah, priora. Priora.. A plethora of underpowered priora smoking their 134HP on the horizon!!!

You got it quite wrong bear. I strongly believe myself that it should be one bous and two bii.

Priuses it is.
Write your Congressman, make it so.
Oh, he just resigned.
Never mind…

Overload…congrats to the Wood Bros and Trevor Bayne…..thats a real “mother”…

Trevor Bayne jokes that he wasn’t prepared to win the race and he’ll need somebody to drive his truck home to Charlotte

…

Marina! It’s “walri are hungrus “! Eye thunk you spoke Engrish!

Wow, I never thought my studies would ever be used in this context.

Let me see if I have this right…

1) A multinational auto manufacturing corporation named its supposedly ecologically-friendly product after an adjective in a dead language.
2) Some marketing shmucks from said corporation got together to decide how to pluralize the name of this product.
3) Somehow, after the profound decision is made whether to use proper conjugation in the parent language, current American vernacular, or the result of some inane elective contest, I’m supposed to care how this car, or several of the same cars, are named.
4) Somewhere, Jeff Dunham is laughing about this issue.

Questions for the linguists and the anal-retentive:

As there is neither a noun to be modified by the adjective, nor an article, would that not make the adjective substantival?

As there must be agreement between noun and adjective in gender and number, could the plural be correct, depending upon what (substantive) noun the adjective is modifying? Ex: fungi prii

Is this adjective a special case for third declension? Most of the time the adjective root must end with a consonant to be third declension.

Are you sure this is not a nominative singular 1st declension masculine (or neuter) adjective?

Forgive me if these questions seem confusing… I may be jumbling my Greek and Latin

“Now.. do you really see yourself using Prii to refer to the multiple “Prii” parked outside of the annual Mensa gathering? Seems rather pretentious, right?”

In all honesty, I already find Mensa to be pretentious. Whatever a Mensa member would drive would also be described as pretentious, unless it was a Prius… in which case it would be called a “POS”.

Uhhh, Huh? Are you perhaps a Luxembourger, or from somewhere else that a large, noisy public conveyance is spelled thusly? Hmmm.

Vernacular language? So you’re a 100% homebred genuine native american then? I have not met many of them in my life. Most of them don’t make a lot of noise wherever they go, they don’t push you around, but they listen much. Is English what you’re calling a vernacular american language, or you had something else in mind?

Your questions are not confusing, but the answers might be. Did you ever hear of Aristotle’s Analytica Priora?

Do you enjoy brainfarting in public, Dezdkado? I believe Freud did. And that is not a Freudian slip. Forgive me if these questions seem confusing… I may be jumbling my English.

Vernacular language? So you’re a 100% homebred genuine native american then? I have not met many of them in my life. Most of them don’t make a lot of noise wherever they go, they don’t push you around, but they listen much. Is English what you’re calling a vernacular american language, or you had something else in mind?

Your questions are not confusing, but the answers might be. Did you ever hear of Aristotle’s Analytica Priora?

Do you enjoy brainfarting in public, Dezdkado? I believe Freud did. And that is not a Freudian slip. Forgive me if these questions seem confusing… I may be jumbling my English.

Nah, a bous is not a large noisy public conveyance in Luxembourgish. :-)

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ

ᐳᑦᔪᓯᖅᑐᖅ

“Save money on the bull, ride a cowboy.”
– American native english vernacular proverb

Do you think Prius is a she?
If so, shall the pluralis be the same?
http://sportgirlies.com/

So how long are you going to keep me in suspense?

I think machines are androgynously-built. But it is true that the prius+ (let’s name them this way since nobody knows what to say when faced with a plethora of them) have a rather curvy and roundy silhouette, are colourfully cute and rather underpowered… Wouldn’t that make them a little… erm… forget about this, all right?

I am not going to keep you in suspense.

See on google. You can’t bear a bous, unless you’re a real Atlas. But a bous would bear you without any problem like a feather. That is if he doesn’t gore you first. :-)

This reminds me of an old posting of mine. In fact, it was probably one of my first. Let’s see now. Oh, here it is…

I’m wondering about the word “DUFUS.” This word seems to refer to an unusually dim-witted or klutzy person.

But what if there are more than one? Is the plural “dufusses?” This just doesn’t sound right to me. A busload of dufusses…

In accordance with the conventional Latin pluralization rule regarding -US suffixes, I prefer to think of it as “dufi” instead, but then one must carefully pronounce the long “i” sound at the end to get the desired effect.

Am I over-analyzing?

Neuroway, “vernacular” has other meanings than “native language”. (Even so, “native” does not necessarily mean “aboriginal”.) Vernacular also has a meaning of “pertaining to the common (vulgar, as opposed to learned) language of a region.” Certainly I’ve heard of Analytica Priora… but then, in spite of his profound grasp of reason, Aristotle was too caught up in the observable. If we followed his logic, we’d still believe in a geo-centric universe. Perhaps you’ve heard of Daniel Webster’s dictionary? I refer you back to the definition of vernacular.

As language changes over time (which is really the point of etymology), and peoples are subject to migrations, wars, colonization, etc., if we were to follow your understanding of vernacular, then no one, of any culture, in any country, could ever speak in the vernacular. Few people would ever be truly native to their region, and those that were would not be speaking the original language.

Did you ever hear of the Land Bridge Theory? If it’s true, then no one is indigenous to the Americas, and “native”, as it pertains to the Americas, would mean nothing more than a person born in that region.

NO NO! By all means! I believe there is some misunderstanding between us… Wait… It must be my vernacular american… Let me try again… Let us agree to agree that you are without a doubt an indigenous, and there is no doubt about it all right?

OK.. Me, hombre far far away {gesture} come you {gesture} soil. {gesture+gesture}. Me have good stuff {gesture} for vernacularians such as {gesture} your self. You {gesture} comprender me? Eh? {gesture}

Me no know {gesture} your man {gesture} Dranial Wabster {gesture} and his {gesture} dictionoury.

Me having {gesture} good greek and latin {gesture} books for you {gesture}. Exchanger them {gesture} goodies-goodies. Capiche you {gesture}. No problemo, eh? {gesture}. Faraway man Amigo+friendo with indigenous. ok? {gesture}

Blimey, I think neuroway just gave me Bigby’s Expressive Digit…

OK, you have succeeded in making me laugh. That was weird, but stranger still, I think I understood you. I’d try to respond in English, but I don’t know how to properly conjugate the “pip pip”s, “what’s all this then”s, and “sonic screwdrivers.” So here we go again from the vernacular American: No Problemo… Me, hombre here {gesture} appreciate {gesture+gesture} words of great Greek {poking bum gesture} medicine man. Him important {big, expressive gesture} thinker {points to temple} with {gathering gesture} medicine for all time {points to watch}. Him important to science (peering in microscope gesture} as well as Christian church {dancing around as though lit on fire}. Me not so good {negative gesture} at Latin {quo vadis} but studied more Greek {eating a gyro} and Hebrew {dipping hummus}. I {pointing to self} read deadlang {puts bishops mitre on head} out of curiosity {strangling a cat}. Dranial Wabster is a jackass anyway… spelling changes from Engrish to ‘merican give big headache {frowning gesture with murderous glance}. Would love to see {binoculars} books of faraway man from land of fish and chips {rubbing belly gesture}. Posto-Scripto… no riding of cows, but riding horses {gestures collision of coconut halves}. Cows plenty dumb {crosses eyes and drools}. Have you ever read his Analytica Posteriora? I’ve never seen it.

We ALL over-analyze on this site.

You’d think Toyota would get it’s Priora-ties straight.

neuroway, I’m only seeing boxes with digits in place of script in your post, like one gets when copying and pasting something in Cambodian or Tamil. What was the original language? Inuit?

***Saanich language***

Speaking of linguistics…Marina, as a linguist, can you translate the following for us into plain English? Naika halo kumtux!

1.1.1. Obstruents.
The obstruents are usually lenis but never voiced. The glottalized obstruents are ejective but weakly so. It is often difficult, especially in the anterior consonants, to perceive the contrast. Unlike the closely related Klallam language, Saanich obstruents are only rarely and weakly aspirated.

1.1.1.1. The labial, /p/ plain voiceless and /p̕/ glottalized, are always bilabial.
pekÌ•Ê· ‘smoke (hides, fish, etc.)’, pÌ•É™kÊ· ‘rise to the surface’; Å¡páqÊ·É™s ‘drop-off’, spÌ•aq̕ʷəŋ ‘foam’; paxÊ· ‘blow’, p̕əɬ ‘emerge’; θə́pxʷəŋ ‘brittle’, sx̣ə́pÌ•Å¡É™n ‘fishtail’; qÌ•pÉ™t ‘gather it’, xÊ·qÌ•pÌ•É™t ‘patch it’; ɬəp ‘blink’, ɬ;apÌ• ‘eat with a spoon’; ʔápÉ™n ‘ten’, ɬápÌ•É™n ‘spoon’.

Source: http://www.cas.unt.edu/~montler/Saanich/Outline/index.htm

Speaking of Saanich language: think I’ll go fix myself a ham on rye. :-D

Inuktitut. Inuit is not a language.

I can see it without any problem. You probably don’t have the software or hardware for it. Well, at least you can hear it now. Beautiful, isn’t it?

Speaking of phonetics, Andrew Armour, who runs Kubuli Watersports on the Caribbean island of Dominica, has been called the “Whale Whisperer” because of his ability to communicate with sperm whales, particularly a young male named “Scar.”

“Once I’m in the water I try to reach them acoustically by making this noise in the water, and it’s the same noise all the time so they know it’s me,” he says. “So I’m talking to them all the time in the water, and they start coming.”

Source: http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/17290/dominicas+whale+whisperer+shares+a+remarkable+story/

Speaking of phonetics, Andrew Armour, who runs Kubuli Watersports on the Caribbean island of Dominica, has been called the “Whale Whisperer” because of his ability to communicate with sperm whales, particularly a young male named “Scar.”

“Once I’m in the water I try to reach them acoustically by making this noise in the water, and it’s the same noise all the time so they know it’s me,” he says. “So I’m talking to them all the time in the water, and they start coming.”

Source: http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/17290/dominicas+whale+whisperer+shares+a+remarkable+story/

Speaking of phonetics, Andrew Armour, who runs Kubuli Watersports on the Caribbean island of Dominica, has been called the “Whale Whisperer” because of his ability to communicate with sperm whales, particularly a young male named “Scar.”

“Once I’m in the water I try to reach them acoustically by making this noise in the water, and it’s the same noise all the time so they know it’s me,” he says. “So I’m talking to them all the time in the water, and they start coming.”

Source: http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/17290/dominicas+whale+whisperer+shares+a+remarkable+story/

You suckered me again….the sands of grain and ceder my del-dish-like,,ush….my musky friend got me surfing bad vinegar….delishious and the lost dol(f)phin…

…the ride got us some hot wine from the mowhaks…..saint regis baby—–sand my woody….JAH!!!…

Wanted: pronunciation tips for a plurality of priuses:

So, is it “pre-eee” or “pre-eye”. If I recall my 2 yrs of HS latin correkitilly, it would be the latter–pre-EYE, but then I hear folks who’ve successfully senesced into their 80s saying Alumna (ah), alumnus (nuss–no real chance for ambiguity there), alumnæ (EYE but sometimes an elided -ayeee, the terminal e being that weird upside-down e, aka schwa), and alumni (EYE again), but sometimes “alum-knee”.

And then, is it old Latin or New Latin (is there such a distinction? C as K, Caesar, pron. Kaiser); I do recall that there is “hoch Deutsch” and “platt Deutsch” pronunciations. How is an “alta kacker”? to know.

Is this lesson really worth wringing one’s mind over? Prius is a name. Who governs how you pluralize a name?

There Goes A Priora of Prii …. Now, That’s getting a Little Redundant…

That’s why it’s part of the Nerd Word se tion :-)

Okay, sorry that you had to hand it to me on a silver platter with clues. Been “sneaking” computer time in the workplace, as my laptop crashed the other day. Literally. To the floor. Finally saw the Bous a la Mar fetival of insanity, so it seems obvious that bous means bull SOMEwhere, but any translator I used gave me only “trawler.” Is it slang? I gotta play the dumbass card here, neurodude. I thought for a while you were screwing with me, but I believe you are trying to teach me something. A day where nothing is learned is a day wasted. Help me out here :-)

Dude. I WAS screwing with you, to be honest. I didn’t hand anything to you on a silver platter. I just shot it out the way it came to me. Believe me or not, I didn’t know that bous was actually a real word. After your post, I thought it meant something in Luxembourgish, so I googled it. Well it turns out that “bous” means “toros” in catalán. Is it slang or not? I have no idea, because I don’t speak a freaking word of catalán, except “bous”, of course. :-) I don’t even how to say “hi” in that language. I don’t even know how you say “donkey” or “thank you” in catalán, but I now know that bous means toros in that language. And I also now know that something more profound, way more profound can be learned from that. As a matter of fact, I am less dumb than yesterday, thanks to me screwing with you, dude! You, my friend, are the teacher today. Not me! And I thank you for that!

P.S. DO NOT call Bous a la Mar a festival of insanity, all right? Bous a la Mar IS NOT a festival of insanity! Comprende, eh? A clownesque rodeo is a festival of insanity, not bous a la mar. Tatoo it deep inside your brain! Capiche?

Just kidding. Happy trails, doncross2bear! That was a funny one, and you made me smile. :-)

Yikes! Only one comment since yesterday? I would say this is a dead topic!

I was reading an article and found the sentence, “Officials said the marina will have to be dredged to remove the silt and debris buildup.” I hereby volunteer for “dredging service.” Oh, wait, wrong city.

Are you sure that someone who runs in front of 3000 pounds with horns, and
then jumps in the drink hoping not to be followed is not of questionable
sanity? I’ve done some odd shit in my day, but Mama and Daddy didn’t
tolerate fools well, so they took great pains not to raise any………:-)
Cya

I don’t care what they call them, to me they are still JUNK !!!

Why don’t they call it PISS, or PISSI?

Why don’t they call it PISS, or PISSI?

Prii -  funny but serious))
Thanks for the article, m4a to mp3 converter, KN

I do not Understand the Value of Prii given by the Toyota.
http://lumberjocks.com/Virginiaquez