If there was more than one Illinois, would they be called Illinoises or Illinoi?
If there was more than one Illinois, would they be called Illinoises or Illinoi?
Off the top of my head, I can't think of a word in English that ends with "is" while being singular, only plurals and uncountables come to mind, so I can't really follow the examples of other words. What makes it even weirder, I'm not sure how to pronounce Illinoises... Would it be as written, or as if an Illinois was pronounced by someone who has never encountered it before? Illinoi are also meh, since now plural looks as a singular and the other way round.
The plural of “Quebecois” is spelled the same, but the last syllable is pronounced “kwaz”. So by analogy, the plural of Illinois would be pronounced “ill-in-waz”.
Yes and for the same reason — they are both French words for groups of people.
Except two states called Illinois is different from two people from the Illini tribe and sometimes plural Quebecois is Quebeckers so I wouldn’t place any solid bets on sanity in naming when we get our 2nd Illinois
Illini? As in what the University of Illinois sports teams are called
Basis becomes Bases Crisis becomes Crises Oasis Oases Echolalia Echolalies Etc Generally the vowel becomes an e
Illinois Illinoes
If you're mad at someone, it would be illinoyed.
i think they called it
misery'missouri'I think over the course of years it would eventually end up becoming Illinoises, no matter if the word came from a different language. Words tend to get assimilated like that. It sounds weird now cause, well, there are no two Illinois so practically no one ever used it in plural. I’d pronounce it literally as „noises“ as in noise. But I‘m no linguistic expert, heck I‘m not even a native English speaker. It‘s just my belief.
Illinoare
Or perhaps if you cleaned that up, Illinoir
Maybe spelled the same, but with the "s" pronounced?
It did not start out as an English word. It came from the Miami-Illinos language to Algonquin and/or Ojibwe to French then to English. So applying English language rules to a non-English word will be difficult.
But as AbouBenAdhem suggests ITT, treating it like the French word "Quebecquois" makes a lot of sense.
Info about the etymology:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/Illinois
https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/illinois/articles/this-is-how-illinois-got-its-name
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/IllinoisIllinoispi