Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a word in English that ends with “is” while being singular, only plurals and uncountables come to mind, so I can’t really follow the examples of other words. What makes it even weirder, I’m not sure how to pronounce Illinoises… Would it be as written, or as if an Illinois was pronounced by someone who has never encountered it before? Illinoi are also meh, since now plural looks as a singular and the other way round.
The plural of “Quebecois” is spelled the same, but the last syllable is pronounced “kwaz”. So by analogy, the plural of Illinois would be pronounced “ill-in-waz”.
Yes and for the same reason — they are both French words for groups of people.
Except two states called Illinois is different from two people from the Illini tribe and sometimes plural Quebecois is Quebeckers so I wouldn’t place any solid bets on sanity in naming when we get our 2nd Illinois
You speak like a second Illinois is inevitable. Is there something you know? Hands off Michigan, but Iowa and Wisconsin are fair game
I was thinking more like a split into North Illinois and South Illinois. I think we’d have to see South Illinois standing on its own before any mergers with Iowa or Indiana are on the table. Wisconsin or Michigan… I do not see that happening, no.
I live in northwestern Illinois, Iowa can keep their independence for their cheap gas but we really should annex Wisconsin for their geography alone.
Illini? As in what the University of Illinois sports teams are called
It’s probably like scissors. No matter how many there are. It’s just scissors.
Example: “Can I have one scissors please?”
“I’m afraid you can not! We are not having any scissors left…“
Basis becomes Bases Crisis becomes Crises Oasis Oases Echolalia Echolalies Etc Generally the vowel becomes an e
Illinois Illinoes
i think they called it
misery‘missouri’If you’re mad at someone, it would be illinoyed.
Maybe spelled the same, but with the “s” pronounced?
It did not start out as an English word. It came from the Miami-Illinos language to Algonquin and/or Ojibwe to French then to English. So applying English language rules to a non-English word will be difficult.
But as AbouBenAdhem suggests ITT, treating it like the French word “Quebecquois” makes a lot of sense.
Info about the etymology:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/Illinois
https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/illinois/articles/this-is-how-illinois-got-its-name
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/IllinoisI think over the course of years it would eventually end up becoming Illinoises, no matter if the word came from a different language. Words tend to get assimilated like that. It sounds weird now cause, well, there are no two Illinois so practically no one ever used it in plural. I’d pronounce it literally as „noises“ as in noise. But I‘m no linguistic expert, heck I‘m not even a native English speaker. It‘s just my belief.
Illinoare
Or perhaps if you cleaned that up, Illinoir
Illinoispi
Octopuses or octopi
Octopodes.
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