Re: skis and skies

[ David Dermott ]

>   I assume that the older English use of plural "ski" is
> following the Norwegian use. I can't find the exact references in
> my "Self-Taught Norwegian" textbooks, but I remember that
> many Norwegian nouns of one syllable are the same in the indefinite
> plural as in the singular. But I have seen the spelling "skia".
> What's that ? A Nynorsk spelling? a feminine form? plural? (Asking
> the "norske folk" in the group)

"Ski" is the indefinite form (both singular and plural), "skia" is
definite (well I'm not quite sure that's the right word -- "bestemt
form" in Norwegian); some specific ski. In bokmål/riksmål (the forms
of Norwegian most influenced by Danish) one can also say "skien"
(singular)/"skiene" (plural).

>    Early 1900s English use also spelled it "shee". My
> mother has a dictionary (1930s) that spells it "ski" both sing.
> and plur. and gives the pronunciation "shee". I'm
> not sure if  the dictionary was a US or British standard.
> My grade 5 teacher also pronounced it "shee".

For clarity, this is more or less the way "ski" is pronounced in
Norwegian (with a moderately short "ee").


Martin
-- 
"An ideal world is left as an exercise to the reader."
                                                 -Paul Graham, On Lisp