well tonight
Thank god it's them, instead of you.

Which is a disgusting line to sing in any Charity record.

and the plural of stadium is stadia
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 17:12, 2 replies)

Stadiums is also correct
Stadium

n. pl. sta·di·ums or sta·di·a (-d-)
1. A large, usually open structure for sports events with tiered seating for spectators.
2. A course on which foot races were held in ancient Greece, usually semicircular and having tiers of seats for spectators.
3. An ancient Greek measure of distance, based on the length of such a course and equal to about 185 meters (607 feet).
4. Medicine A stage or period in the course of a disease.
5. Biology A stage in the development or life history of an organism.
( Lord & Lady Pants, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 18:06, closed)

but is that only because
People have been getting it wrong for so long that it has become recognised as an alternative spelling?
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 19:28, closed)

Three points:
1) We speak English, not Latin. Otherwise we'd have to use a different ending for motion towards, in the subjunctive case or on a wet Wednesday, and all the other pointless inflections that our language has, thankfully, been abandoning for some centuries now.

2) "Wrong" implies that there is a prescriptive "Right" way. A dubious concept, at best, because:

3) That's how language evolves

For example, the fruit we call an "Orange" was originally a "Norange" -- from the Spanish word. "A Norange" sounded to most people like "An Orange", so that's what it became. By your argument, "An Orange" is Wrong.

Similarly, "Connection" used to be spelled "Connexion", but it was more consistent and simpler to use "Connect" + "ion".

Here endeth the lesson.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Thu 6 Jan 2011, 9:35, closed)

Is the plural of House Housennen or something?
I used to be of the opinion that the plural of "octopus" was "octopi" and the plural of "stadium" was "stadia" -- but if you follow that then you either need to make every plural agree or just forget it and make it English.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 18:33, closed)

well no
Because it's not Esperanto where rules are designed to be global rather than a proper language like English which has arbitrary rules.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 20:01, closed)

Who says?
The "rules" we go by were largely made up in the last couple of hundred years and mostly based on trying to make English sound like shit Latin.
You cannot argue that "stadia" is the correct plural of "stadium" without then arguing that we should apply the rules of the language of origin to every word we use -- and we do not do that.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 20:29, closed)

But that's the point
the rules are skeletal at best.
However, when Latin nouns were adopted into the English language, their plurals were too. It is only in the last few decades that such plurals have been Anglicised and thus 'stadiums' entered the vernacular and ultimately the dictionaries. This is not down to rules being applicable, it's just piss-poor teaching standards in English and widespread dumbing down in the media which filters down into education.

Yes languages evolve, and so they should. But it should not be as a result of poor education in modern schools.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Thu 6 Jan 2011, 13:06, closed)

If you're going to be pedantic, the plural of "octopus" would be "octopodes".

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 20:23, closed)

I wonder how many of us rushed to the reply button for that one

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 5 Jan 2011, 21:43, closed)

I'm a big fan of clitorides

( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 6 Jan 2011, 10:39, closed)

Sounds like
a protein or an enzyme
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Thu 6 Jan 2011, 13:09, closed)