# Double plurals



## Maabdreo

Terve,

I was curious why certain loan words from English enter Finnish as singular nouns that nonetheless still have the English plural ending, e.g. _sip*s*i_, _app*s*i_, and _muffin*ss*i_. I'm wondering:

1) Why these words and not others--does anyone have a theory? _Sipsi_ makes some sense to me since we probably talk about "chips" more often than a single "chip," but apps and muffins?
2) Are there other examples?
3) Does this ever happen with loans from other modern languages? (This book gives the example of _fakta_, but misusing a Latin plural seems less mysterious.)

Hyvää sunnuntai-iltaa kaikille


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## Gavril

Some (semi-speculative) thoughts:

In Finnish, it seems more common (compared to English) to use the singular form of a noun on labels/signs advertising products, though plural forms are found there as well. For example, this box is labelled with the singular form "suklaa-myslipatukka", even though there are probably many chocolate-muesli bars in the box.

Given this situation, some speakers may have seen an English-language sign or label that said "muffins", or an icon that said "apps" (many smartphones, including mine, have an icon like this on their opening screen), and have associated these forms with the singular, because that is a common pattern for the same context in Finnish.

The speakers who first said _muffinssit_, _appsit _etc. may well have known that the -_s_ in English was a plural marker, but these are colloquialisms (_sovellus_ is the standard word for app, _muffini_ the standard word for muffin), and colloquial language often does not have the same rules of correctness as the standard written language.

One other thing about _appsi_ is that, without the "s", this word would have looked (at least in many of its case forms) like the word for "father-in-law", _appi_.

At least one other example of this phenomenon is _shortsit_ "shorts"; I remember seeing more examples but I can't call them to mind right now.


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## DrWatson

Another which comes to mind is _leggin(g)sit _(< _leggings_) which also has the English plural form as base. Anyway, even though _leggingsit _is probably regarded colloquial, I doubt anybody would insist that it be called *_leggingit _in standard written Finnish instead.


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## Maabdreo

Thanks for your replies, Gavril and Dr. Watson.



Gavril said:


> Given this situation, some speakers may have seen an English-language sign or label that said "muffins", or an icon that said "apps" (many smartphones, including mine, have an icon like this on their opening screen), and have associated these forms with the singular, because that is a common pattern for the same context in Finnish.



That's an interesting point.



Gavril said:


> One other thing about _appsi_ is that, without the "s", this word would have looked (at least in many of its case forms) like the word for "father-in-law", _appi_.



I hadn't thought about that. 



Gavril said:


> At least one other example of this phenomenon is _shortsit_ "shorts"





DrWatson said:


> Another which comes to mind is _leggin(g)sit _(< _leggings_)



Those two seem especially natural since of course they're both plural-only nouns in English. But then there's also "boxers"/_boxerit_. Maybe _boxersit_ would have been harder to say?


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## fennofiili

DrWatson said:


> Another which comes to mind is _leggin(g)sit _(< _leggings_) which also has the English plural form as base. Anyway, even though _leggingsit _is probably regarded colloquial, I doubt anybody would insist that it be called *_leggingit _in standard written Finnish instead.



_Leggingsit _appears in the official _Kielitoimiston sanakirja_ without any remark on style. There is a common variant _legginsit _(not present in the dictionary but mentioned in the Kielikello 2/2011 article Piukkatrikoita leggingseistä treggingseihin) and the more colloquial _leggarit_.


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## Gavril

Maabdreo said:


> Those two seem especially natural since of course they're both plural-only nouns in English. But then there's also "boxers"/_boxerit_. Maybe _boxersit_ would have been harder to say?



Another possible factor is that there are other common clothing items whose names end in -_arit_ (nearly identical to the -_*e*rit_ of _bokserit_), such as _haalarit_ "coveralls"/"overalls". This pattern could have discouraged the addition of an extra _s-_suffix to_ bokserit.
_
-_ari _is a widespread suffix in Finnish, ultimately related to English -_er_ (as in _baker_, _potter_, etc.) and often having the same meaning of "someone/something that does [verb], or is associated with [noun]": e.g. _tuomari_ "judge" is related to _tuomita_ "to judge", _tuomio_ "judgement" etc.


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