I say "Portuguese men o' war." If I'm talking about a ship and not a jellyfish-thing, that's the plural I use. I say, what's good enough for a ship is good enough for a fucking stingmonster. OK, a pretty fucking stingmonster, but still.
It will be time to put the -s on the end when we start spelling it manofwar. Until then, the words haven't fused, so "o' war" is an adjectival prepositional phrase, "war" is a separate noun, and it's not the wars that are plural.
Merriam-Webster spells it "man-of-war" and gives both plurals, with the -s form first and thus preferred. I normally accept M-W, but in this place I'm calling them wrong on at least two counts: it shouldn't be hyphenated, because it's a noun phrase and won't ordinarily be modifying anything else (and if someone refers to "Portuguese man of war evolutionary genetics" I think we can figure it out), and the real noun is "man," so that's where the plural ending goes. But I do agree in not using "o'."
That makes no sense to me. I mean, to go back to the source of the metaphor, "The Portuguese admiral launched twelve man-of-war" just sounds wrong. And Webster doesn't even mention that option.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 06:17 pm (UTC)Merriam-Webster spells it "man-of-war" and gives both plurals, with the -s form first and thus preferred. I normally accept M-W, but in this place I'm calling them wrong on at least two counts: it shouldn't be hyphenated, because it's a noun phrase and won't ordinarily be modifying anything else (and if someone refers to "Portuguese man of war evolutionary genetics" I think we can figure it out), and the real noun is "man," so that's where the plural ending goes. But I do agree in not using "o'."
no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 07:10 pm (UTC)That's my opinion.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 11:45 pm (UTC):-)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-01 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-01 02:19 am (UTC)