I teach ESL, and this kinda shit in the English language drives me nuts. It's impossible to explain. Just gotta know it. The worst is when you're asking questions. "What's this?" for single things. "What are these?" for multiples. HTF do you explain that you have to know to ask "What are these?" when you're asking about pants or scissors. They're literally asking what those things are. It's bizarre.

Bluewing@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 52d (1 reply)

Just blame the French for things like this. Your students will be like "Oh that explains it" and move on to the next nonsensical thing they need to learn.

Every language has it's "you just gotta know" moments. Like German. Not too hard until you start getting into technical reading and speech. Just how many words can you glue together? And why?

SavinDWhales@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 52d

What do you mean why?

So we can have games named like this

::: spoiler spoiler PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant :::

qarbone@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 52d (1 reply)

It is impossible to intuit, but you just introduce "pair of pants" as the singular article. Thus, two pants are "two pairs of pants."

Underwaterbob@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 52d

Which is fine for more advanced students, but for kids whose vocabulary and grammar are already very limited, it confuses things a lot.

AA5B@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 52d (2 replies)

Bring a pair of kitchen scissors, and awe them by separating the halves

calcopiritus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 52d (1 reply)

Why is a pair of scissors separated in halves? Shouldn't a pair of scissors be separated into 2 unit scissor?

EDIT: so you would have 2 half pair of scissors? A pair of half pair of scissors?

AA5B@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 51d

Apparently this oddity has a term

pants is an example of a plurale tantum—a word only ever used in its plural form

But I don’t see anything makings sense of it

Epzillon@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 52d (2 replies)

From the recent Tom Scott upload I learned a group of ferrets are called "a business". We need more silly names to refer to multiple items. The layered parody of a pair of a pair of scissors is indeed tickling my silly bone.

Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 52d (1 reply)

And a group of velvet worms is called "a cuddle". Idk who comes up with these but I like them.

PostProcess@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 52d

A group of bankers is known as a 'wunch'...

Bratosch@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 52d

Pair of scissorses

ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 52d

Scissors^2^

Diddlydee@feddit.uk · 9 pts · 52d

Pairs of scissors, obviously.

Which 4, or 17, or 249, or 17843368 etc would also reasonably be called.

lime@feddit.nu · 9 pts · 52d

four scissors

Chee_Koala@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 52d

It's a troupe of scissors!

CannedYeet@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 52d (2 replies)

One time my grandmother gave me two pears. She said, "Here's your two pears". I said, "This is just one pair" and we went back forth a bit before she got it.

funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 52d

four candles please

nightofmichelinstars@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 52d

Good on you for pushing the issue.

pigup@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 52d

Mind was blown when I was learning about an xray-based microfabrication technique. Where the x-rays are known to scise (to cut) polymer molecules.

It took me several years to realize that scissors are tools that scise things. They are prolific scise-ers.

icelimit@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 52d

That's clearly four scissors.

vivalapivo@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 52d

Attempted murder

zarathustrad@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 52d

Scissor Sisters.

fleebleneeble@reddthat.com · 7 pts · 52d (1 reply)

Scissi

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 52d

Scisodes.

Fedizen@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 52d

Pair of pairs of scissors.

Prior_Industry@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 52d

Scissor Sisters

Okokimup@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 52d

Scisters

benderbeerman@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 52d

It's 2 per, as in:

Give me 2 per Cuz I need two per

Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 52d

If there’s a boy pair of scissors there, and a girl pair of scissors there, then it’s a brace of pairs of scissors.

Obv.

English is very straightforward.

Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 52d (7 replies)

It's like fish

robocall@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 52d (2 replies)

One fish, two fish

Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 52d (1 reply)

Red fish, blue fish

SavinDWhales@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 52d

Left shark, right shark.

Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 52d (1 reply)

Multiple fish of Multiple species would be fishes.

Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 52d

Last i checked though scissors don't have a species attribute so I think we're good.

SavinDWhales@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 52d (1 reply)

So, if you have a couple, would that be a school of scissors?

Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 52d

I would prefer it called a clip of scissors but sure.

wuffah@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 53d

Multi-scissor drifting!

SoyaSuki@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 52d

A square of scissors

normalentrance@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 52d

Just a couple about to be scissoring.

snoons@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 52d

Also a pair of scissors.

MajinBlayze@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 52d

Quartet of scissors

Ironfacebuster@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 52d

1 pant = a pair of pants 2 pant = the noise a dog makes when it's hot outside

Prok@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 52d

A pair of pair of scissors

FellowEnt@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 52d

Scissii duh

nectar45@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 52d

A scisoring

chunes@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 52d

Those aren't scissors. They're shears.

CharcoalRushmoore@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 52d

A pair of scissori

PhAzE@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 52d

Scissorses... those pesky scissorses...

AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 52d

Get three tweezers and you got a full house!

M137@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 52d

Seen many threads of people arguing over this, except for two pairs of pants. And it's just mind boggling how people can't figure out that it's "two pairs".

Doomsider@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 52d

The correct name for a group of scissors is a circumcision. That is a circumcision of scissors.

You are welcome.

Archangel1313@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 52d

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