Talk:ethoi

I am not saying it isn't but are we sure ethoi is the correct plural? How was it formed then (not by following the Greek plural since, in that case, it would be "ethe").

According to the first nine Google hits using these keywords, then yes; however, according to the tenth, it is indeed ethe / ethea. It seems that most sources do not give a plural for ethos. I would support changing it to ethe; however, as Wiktionary, unfortunately, opperates virtually solely on the basis of verified usage, you would have to cite its use in English (which I encourage). By the way, on talk pages and other discussion fora, please sign your comments with four tildes, which give your username and a timestamp. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 14:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Whoops! I completely forgot about that. Anyway, back to "ethos" and its plural; "Usage" poses a slight problem! It includes,a) no plural b) ethoi c) ethoses d)ethe e) ethea (the last two created in accordance with the formation of the Greek plural). I for one am not the one to decide which one is correct.

I was actually hoping someone could give me a definite answer :). Not having plural, having an "english" plural or one formatted according to the Greek original (as in the case of phenomenon/phenomena) I can understand. "Ethoi" I can only speculate about. Rnylk 10:06, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

The original entry for ethos gave no plural (like most dictionaries), so I went looking for one. I assumed that it was ethoi, as per mythoi and demoi; reference unto Google seemed to back me up, giving ethoses fewer hits than ethoi (838 vs. 1,590). I added ethoi, considering that to be sufficient verification of usage. However, with further reference unto Google, it seems that both ethe and ethea are used far more often (with the former being the most common plural form, with 862,000 vs. 27,200). Considering all this, I am going to edit ethos accordingly. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 23:13, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know the issue in Greek is that "ethoi" would be the plural if the word "ethos" were masculine. But "ethos" in Greek is neutral so the plural is "ethe". Of course that is the situation in Greek but "ethos" has ben borrowed into English. Plenty of borrowed words become Englishized (ugh!) and are treated as if they were English. By that standard the plural would be "ethoses" I guess. Usage predominates, even if it is "incorrect". Most English users use "indexes" for the plural of "index" rather than "indices".