I've always used "legos" as the plural, e.g. when telling my kids to put them away.
This behaviour seems limited to the USA. Lego the corporation wants you to protect their brand for them by calling them 'Lego brand building blocks' but everyone else in the English speaking world, outside the US calls many lego 'lego'. In Denmark the plural form is noun-er, but for lego they call it it 'lego'.
So you always say "iPhone phones" rather than "iPhones", right?
We've always pluralized brand names when it made sense to do so and we always will, no matter how pedantically you try to correct everyone else.
English is a living language, not a dead one. The difference is that proper usage is not set in stone. If the majority of people use the language in a way that breaks a previous rule, the new usage becomes the rule.
I'm gonna concur with GP poster here. I grew up calling them legos, among kids who called them legos, and I don't care what Interlego AG or whatever they're called these days wants us to call them. I don't get offended by people who insist on calling them Lego, unless they get all snippy with me — and then it's not with their choice of word, but with the snippyness.
I'm going to disagree. Growing up I called them lego, my parent's called them lego, everyone I knew called them lego. Legos sounds stupid, like "meccanos" or "sheeps." That said, I don't care if other people sounds stupid, so go ahead and call them what you want.
See, it's totally subjective, and has to do with what you're used to. Calling it "Lego" means you're playing with BRANDNAME. But calling it "Legos" means you are playing with BRANDNAME bricks. Personally, I don't play with a brand, I play with its products.
"Maths" sounds stupid because it's objectively wrong. The 's' in mathematics is the nominative 's', not the plural 's'. Attempting to abbreviate the word as if it were plural is simply incorrect English.
Okay, it just doesn't sound right to my American ears just like Lego as a plural doesn't.
Other nouns that are the same in singular and plural are okay, like "moose" and "aircraft". I just never took a "maths" class. I took lots of math classes though.
What is the deal with people bowing down to show obedience to a major corporation's preferred nomenclature? We'll call them whatever we damn well please. Is this due to the gender confusion thing? Fuck what people think.
When you're dealing with a trademark, there's a legal issue involved. Published for-pay articles can face lawsuits for failure to use trademarks according to the grammar specified by the trademark. So if you're someone who makes money off of publishing articles, you kind of have to care, especially for the big brands. Johnson & Johnson is particularly litigious about anyone using "Band-Aid" as an adjective for other things (such as "That patch is just a Band-Aid solution, not a real fix.").
It used to be that if you went to legos.com you got redirected to an explanation of this. It seems to have gone away, but the Wayback Machine still has it.
I work in a library in New Zealand which has a childrens' area with "Lego pits" for children to play with Lego bricks. I asked the librarians, and the volunteers who supervise the Lego pits if anyone called them "Legos". Their response was in the negative, with a volunteer supervisor saying "It's a North American thing"
FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL:
A firefly is not a fly, but a beetle.
Lego* (Score:3, Informative)
The plural of Lego is Lego.
Re:Lego* (Score:5, Interesting)
The plural of Lego is Lego.
According to whom?
I've always used "legos" as the plural, e.g. when telling my kids to put them away.
This behaviour seems limited to the USA. Lego the corporation wants you to protect their brand for them by calling them 'Lego brand building blocks' but everyone else in the English speaking world, outside the US calls many lego 'lego'. In Denmark the plural form is noun-er, but for lego they call it it 'lego'.
Re: (Score:3)
LEGO is both singular and plural, like sheep, or sushi, or Kleenex (if you want another good brand name to compare to).
I have a pack of LEGO, that my herd of sheep carry, while I feed them sushi and hand out Kleenex. This isn't rocket surgery.
Re: (Score:2)
According to LEGO: https://i.stack.imgur.com/tdPK... [imgur.com]
(lower right corner of the image; I've seen a few of these in my sets, over the years)
Re: (Score:1)
So you always say "iPhone phones" rather than "iPhones", right?
We've always pluralized brand names when it made sense to do so and we always will, no matter how pedantically you try to correct everyone else.
English is a living language, not a dead one. The difference is that proper usage is not set in stone. If the majority of people use the language in a way that breaks a previous rule, the new usage becomes the rule.
Re: (Score:2)
I think that the point is that a Lego set is made up of many loose parts whereas an iPhone is a single item.
Re: (Score:1)
yeah, fuck off everyone child I know calls them legos, every parent I know calls them legos, you're just being a douchenozzle.
Re: (Score:3)
"every child I know".... *sigh*
Re: (Score:3)
Everyone I know pluralizes it as "lego". Having an "s" on the end makes it sound as weird as "sheeps" or "pantses".
Re: (Score:2)
I'm gonna concur with GP poster here. I grew up calling them legos, among kids who called them legos, and I don't care what Interlego AG or whatever they're called these days wants us to call them. I don't get offended by people who insist on calling them Lego, unless they get all snippy with me — and then it's not with their choice of word, but with the snippyness.
Re: (Score:3)
Growing up I called them lego, my parent's called them lego, everyone I knew called them lego.
Legos sounds stupid, like "meccanos" or "sheeps."
That said, I don't care if other people sounds stupid, so go ahead and call them what you want.
Re: (Score:2)
Legos sounds stupid, like "meccanos" or "sheeps."
Or "maths"
See, it's totally subjective, and has to do with what you're used to. Calling it "Lego" means you're playing with BRANDNAME. But calling it "Legos" means you are playing with BRANDNAME bricks. Personally, I don't play with a brand, I play with its products.
Re: (Score:2)
Legos sounds stupid, like "meccanos" or "sheeps."
Or "maths"
"Maths" sounds stupid because it's objectively wrong. The 's' in mathematics is the nominative 's', not the plural 's'. Attempting to abbreviate the word as if it were plural is simply incorrect English.
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe some people used to play in a sands pit with their waters pistol.
Re: (Score:2)
The same people who did maths in school?
I called them Legos as a kid. It's a hard habit to break.
And I just really want to say...
Leggo my Eggo!
Re: (Score:2)
Maths makes sense because it is an abbreviation of mathematics, which also ends in an 's'. In fact there is no such word as "mathematic".
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, it just doesn't sound right to my American ears just like Lego as a plural doesn't.
Other nouns that are the same in singular and plural are okay, like "moose" and "aircraft". I just never took a "maths" class. I took lots of math classes though.
This song just popped into my head:
Mos Def - Mathematics [youtube.com]
Re: Lego* (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It used to be that if you went to legos.com you got redirected to an explanation of this. It seems to have gone away, but the Wayback Machine still has it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I work in a library in New Zealand which has a childrens' area with "Lego pits" for children to play with Lego bricks. I asked the librarians, and the volunteers who supervise the Lego pits if anyone called them "Legos". Their response was in the negative, with a volunteer supervisor saying "It's a North American thing"