showerthoughts

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Kokomheart@lemmy.ca

We often share news with each other, but never a single "new" (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 years ago by nihilist_hippie@lemmy.ca to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.ca

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It just occurred to me that we always refer to news in the plural sense. Even if we're just telling somebody one thing that happened, it's always "news". Makes me wonder if, in the past, there was ever a convention of referring to news in the singular sense.

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[–] Silver_neurotic 1 points 2 years ago

News stands for north, east, west, south. It’s not a plural new.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago

News, traffic, software, mail; there's a whole class of nouns that people don't seem to realize aren't the countable type that get definite articles.

And yes, when that dope in the seat next to you says "e-mails", you now know why he's an idiot.

If he starts talking about how languages evolve, tell him it's tubular.