Talk:axises

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

Is axises an alternative spelling or a common misspelling of the plural of axis? RJFJR 19:38, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems prevalent mostly in technical writings by authors for whom English may not be their first language. Not so rare in Groups and newspaper comments (but rare in articles). Hard to separate out from plural of ax/axe. I would favor misspelling. DCDuring TALK 20:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it's actually {{misconstruction of|axes}}. Alternatively, we may wish to create a new {{misconstructed plural of|axis|axes}} or something, seeing as there are tons of these. —Ruakh_TALK 00:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Not to be pedantic about it, but it seems not a "misconstruction" as much as a simplification, an application of a standard plural rule to what is seen as a standard English word. Increasingly I see the unreasonableness of trying to force people to learn which non-English plural rules are mandatory (Latin, Greek, Italian, Hebrew?) for good English and which are not (Lakota, Aramaic, Bantu). DCDuring TALK 01:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not Wiktionary's place to try to force people to talk a certain way, but it's also not our place to pretend that all ways of talking are equally standard. All the major online dictionaries — AHD, MW, Dict.com, OED — give the plural as (deprecated template usage) axes without comment, and they're borne out by practice in edited works. (Note: I'm speaking only of the senses that we actually define at (deprecated template usage) axis. Apparently it also refers to a kind of deer, and in that sense has plural (deprecated template usage) axises.) Your comment implicitly recognizes that certain things "are mandatory for good English"; why would you wish to deny our readers that same recognition? —Ruakh_TALK 01:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Many languages have irregular forms, and it is usually considered erroneous to apply regular rules to these words. It's not unreasonable to “force” people to spell correctly. In English, axises for axes is just a misspelling—or misconstruction, if we really feel so confident in explaining its mis-etymology. —Michael Z. 2008-07-18 02:09 z

This is one of the most rediculous things I have read. It is axis a pivot point of which something hovers or rotates. It's correct use in a plural statement would be: to simple apply the number of axix to the begining and hyphenate (e.g. 3-axis).
And it is many deer. "I was walking down a trail and I saw many deer." Its not many deers! and it not I saw a heard of Axis deers and its not I saw many Axises. It's simply I saw many Axis Deer.