Moosae?
The correct answer is…
…moose!
‘Moosae’ would get second place by me, except that it sounds too much like ‘moussai’ (= muses, nominative). Somehow I wouldn’t want to confuse those 9 lovely ladies with moose! ;D
I haven’t gotten to the e declension yet (isn’t it the fifth?) so I don’t know how “moose” would decline in Latin; I had to change it to “moosa” before I could decline it. :-\ (Moosa, anyone?)
Moussai is Greek, silly Keesa 
My post was Latin.
Oh wait… so Muses, Musei? What do Muses have to do with mooses anyways?
I’m confused as always. :
???
And hiding it under inimitable elegance of expression? 
If moose was spelled moosa instead of moose, it would be in the A-declension, I could decline it, and the plural would be moosae.
But Raya said that “moosae” was pronounced too much like “moussai” (Greek), and she wouldn’t want to get the muses mixed up with meeses.
So I replied that I had had to decline it moosae, since I couldn’t decline “moose” yet. (If “moose” was Latin, what would the plural be, someone? I’m not in the e-declension yet.)
And that is apparently where we were when you got lost.
;D
I was confused to learn that the word “moose” was not in any Latin dictionary that I have access to. I looked up the word moose and apparently they are mainly found in the Americas, so I guess that explains it.
If moose was a Latin word, how would the plural be formed?
The word “moose” could not be a Latin nominative unless it were some kind of third declension. I’m sure there is a Neo-Latin word though.
[quote author=benissimus link=board=6;threadid=686;start=15#6878 date=1064528915]
I was confused to learn that the word “moose” was not in any Latin dictionary that I have access to. I looked up the word moose and apparently they are mainly found in the Americas, so I guess that explains it.
[/quote]
Are you telling me you didn’t know what a moose was until today??? Even here we learn about major foreign animals in school
I knew what a moose was, but I didn’t know that they weren’t found in Europe.
oh, that’s a relief. I nearly died of shock there
We can do this in three ways: A & G gives a paradigm for 3rd dec. neuter nouns ending in -e (sec. 69) with sedile -is as the example, so assuming moose -is, the plural would be moosia.
If, however, we go by pronunciation rather than by spelling, Eng. moose is pretty similar to Latin mus muris, so we’d end up with moores.
Or we can use the biological name alces alces, making the plural alces alces as well. So the plural (in the nominative at least) is the same as the singular in Latin as well as in English
There you go, Lex-we could all be alces alces, instead of llamas.
The forum is great but is addictive and thus time consuming.
The great achievement is all these wonderful books that I certainly would never have found. Textkit in one way or another may have shaped my life.
And bishop-triangular-hats off to the person who said “moose, moosis” (n). I would have said thus also.
You do realize how annoying a double-o is to pronounce in Latin? The only word I can even think of is the name Laocoon, and that’s just because it’s crazy Greek. :