• @[email protected]
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    1136 months ago

    Wiktionary says

    In the original result of the Wug Test, children consistently produced wugs for the plural. However, plurals other than the standard wugs are sometimes used humorously, including wuggen (by analogy with oxen), weeg, and wuggi (by analogy with Latinate plurals).

    Wuggi sounds nice. Huggy wuggi :3

      • @TotallynotJessica
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        246 months ago

        It’s when there are multiple species of fish. Mob guys are actually saying it correctly, as there are likely multiple types in the ocean when they lay people to rest there.

      • @cuchilloc
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        86 months ago

        Or when they are weird

      • pancakes
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        66 months ago

        I thought the plural of fish was “wet guys”

  • @[email protected]
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    636 months ago

    This test screwed me up in first grade. I thought it was some kind of grammar test so I kept asking if it was a verb, a noun, or an adverb. The test giver was some researcher and was convinced I wasn’t taking the test seriously because I wouldn’t say wugs. He got kind of angry and I found the whole thing to be kind of distressing. I asked to stop and he just got even angrier and said something like, “No one has ever had trouble with the wug test before”. I was convinced I was bad at grammar for years after that. Anyway, wugs! =)

    • @Stamau123OP
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      346 months ago

      Sounds like somebody was bad at giving out tests

      • @[email protected]
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        116 months ago

        I mean, that could have been it, but it seemed like everyone else got through unscathed. I was older than average, I was 7 and the rest of the kids were 6. I think that was his explanation anyway.

    • @CoggyMcFee
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      126 months ago

      Based on the sentence construction it has to be a noun regardless of the meaning tho

      • @[email protected]
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        46 months ago

        It was awhile ago since I took the test. I definitely wasn’t given this exact meme as a child though. I probably would have said wugs if I had been given this on a sheet of paper. I think the test was given verbally and he only busted out paper when I was struggling.

    • @GojuRyu
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      26 months ago

      This sounds a lot like my reaction to questions in the test i got for autism (except it was writtwn so i just scribbled these thoughts out).
      I don’t know if you are on the spectrum, but it sounds like the test giver would have been horrible at administering it to children on the spectrum either way.

      • @[email protected]
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        26 months ago

        I took a lot of tests for autism as a kid because I would stand on my toes. All the specialists said I wasn’t autistic. I got my hamstrings stretched and I stopped standing on my toes.

  • ℛ𝒶𝓋ℯ𝓃
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    396 months ago

    Wugs, if its an Anglo root, unless it’s derived from Latin “Wug*, wugīs” in which case there are two Wugi (wûg-eye). Unless its one of the random Latin words where we don’t do that and it’s still “wugs.” Unless it’s a loanword from germanic then we might anglicise it or we might say “wugar.” Because eNgLIsH iS EaSY…

      • @Stamau123OP
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        36 months ago

        There is no ‘correct’ wug plural, but the most common is ‘wugs’

    • @[email protected]
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      96 months ago

      unless it’s derived from Latin “Wug*, wugīs” in which case there are two Wugi (wûg-eye).

      Wouldn’t a wug, wugis group noun be wuges plural?

      • @[email protected]
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        36 months ago

        Wouldn’t that be Wux, Wuges? It would need to be Wug, Wugines for the ol romans to not condense the word base into ending with x before English gets invented.

      • ℛ𝒶𝓋ℯ𝓃
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        6 months ago

        Correct! Thank you for catching that, I accidentally put it in third declension. So yes Wuges. I was referencing when second declension nouns borrowed into English sometimes remain -i for the plural (as in radii, stimuli etc.) So Wugus, Wugi.

        Oh yeah and sometimes it’s actually Greek causing irregulars (looking at you, criteria)…

  • @[email protected]
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    256 months ago

    My daughter does the opposite in such an intelligent way. Kix cereal for example - one piece of it is a kik. And the singular for clothes is a cloe.

    • @Stamau123OP
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      326 months ago

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Berko_Gleason

      Gleason devised the Wug Test as part of her earliest research (1958), which used nonsense words to gauge children’s acquisition of morphological rules‍—‌for example, the “default” rule that most English plurals are formed by adding an /s/, /z/, or /ɪz/ sound depending on the final consonant, e.g. hat–hats, eye–eyes, witch–witches. A child is shown simple pictures of a fanciful creature or activity, with a nonsense name, and prompted to complete a statement about it

      • @Psythik
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        36 months ago

        Okay but what’s the joke?

        • @[email protected]
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          36 months ago

          I don’t think there is one beyond “hey look we all know this thing”.

          Americans: “We are a diverse patchwork of cultures and saying the US is one gigantic boring monoculture just because we share a common language is offensive”

          Also Americans: hundreds of millions of people literally all relate to the same quirky element of childhood imposed through immense conformist institutions, can’t even process the idea that other cultures exist that do not relate to this specific element.

  • @Randelung
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    246 months ago

    This feels like a word that would be both singular and plural. Like sheep.

    Two wug.

    • @[email protected]
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      6 months ago

      Only if the amount of wug is a prime number.

      This is because non-prime numers of wuggi are highly unstable and will split into separate prime factors of wug if there’s enough space (and in most atmospheric conditions).