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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| pfwillard Pro Member United States Joined 5699 days ago 169 posts - 205 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 23 11 January 2010 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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We say, "Which bus are you waiting for?" Things that have ordinality may have their ordinality queried with a which. Presidents don't really have ordinality outside of time-wasting school exercises.
BTW: "Buss" is an old word for "kiss" so it's "buses" even though that looks like it should rhyme with "fuses" with the meaning of multiple Gary Buseys elvisrules: I will try to bring back "to wit" as part of my language reform program. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| elvisrules Tetraglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5469 days ago 286 posts - 390 votes Speaks: French, English*, Dutch, Flemish Studies: Lowland Scots, Japanese, German | Message 18 of 23 11 January 2010 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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What is this reform plan I hear of? I'm very interested to hear!
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| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 19 of 23 11 January 2010 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, buses aren't really ordered, are they? They might as well be named "Banana" and "Purple", and you could still say "What bus" just as you say "What country" or "What mobile phone", whereas presidents are. There can only be one 34th president, it's not an arbitrary designation, like "Bus 509". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pfwillard Pro Member United States Joined 5699 days ago 169 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 23 12 January 2010 at 5:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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Everywhere I've been the buses were numbered. You don't wait for "a bus" you wait for the "72". They do have a color and number scheme in
Bangkok. Stay away from the little green buses. I guess I'll accept "What number is Obama?" only because I've gotten used to it now. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 21 of 23 12 January 2010 at 9:50am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, they are numbered, but seldom ordered. Many numbers are missing, and there is often no meaning to the numbers other than to keep the buses apart, it's not like bus 72 always leaves before 73. That is, the bus number do not signify an ordering, it's just a naming scheme using numbers. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 22 of 23 12 January 2010 at 10:35am | IP Logged | |||||
Do you have a source on that etymology (or was that a joke I didn't catch?)? I thought "bus" was a shortening of the Latin "omnibus": "for everyone". So logically the plural should be "bi". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 23 of 23 12 January 2010 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
No. Omnibus is not a noun with the masculine -us ending, it is the dative and ablative plural form of omnis, which means everyone, hence "for everyone". Incidentally, many other common Latin words in -us are also not of the -us/-i declension (the 2nd), such as domus, and hence do not have a plural in -i. There are at least three types of words that end in -us, and only one type has -i in the plural. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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