What is the plural form of Blue Tooth? Blue Tooths? Blue Teeth? Or it is like the word ‘deer’, and its the same singular or plural?
I try to imagine hearing someone saying, “We’ve got a new shipment of Blue Tooths/Blue Teeth/Blue Tooth” and figuring out which one sounds the least awkward. So far, not really any of them.
And yes, its sorta bugging me.
5 Comments
November 22, 2008 at 11:07 am
Blue Tooth, used in the way you’ve used it, would be an inaccurate usage of the term. It’s the way the language has progressed based on a lack of knowledge on the subject itself. Blue Tooth is a protocol for wireless communication of a digital signal. To pluralize Blue Tooth would be the same as pluralzing 802.11b. It can’t be done. It functions more as an adjective than as a noun. Or, it’s not supposed to be a noun, but many people use Blue Tooth as a noun to refer to an object that uses the Blue Tooth protocol. Proper usage would be ‘Blue Tooth headset’ in which you can pluralize ‘headset’ to ‘headsets.’
I hope that helps answer your question.
November 22, 2008 at 12:01 pm
… I guess it would be blue tooths. Because, you know, the plural of a computer’s mouse is mouses. Or maybe that’s just what my friends decided? Hmm…
November 22, 2008 at 2:37 pm
i think you have to refer to them as “blue tooth headsets” or something. i don’t know.
November 22, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Blue Tooth is an adjective, so in English we don’t have to pluralize it. You wouldn’t say “We got a shipment of Blue Tooths,” you’d say “We got a shipment of Blue Tooth headsets.”
In French they pluralize adjectives; I don’t know how they’d handle this dilemma.
November 22, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Thanks, everyone!