this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 114 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Wiktionary says

In the original result of the Wug Test, children consistently produced wugs for the plural. However, plurals other than the standard wugs are sometimes used humorously, including wuggen (by analogy with oxen), weeg, and wuggi (by analogy with Latinate plurals).

Wuggi sounds nice. Huggy wuggi :3

[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

That's Greek to me

:3c

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

Wuggingtons

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Wuggi is the first thing that came to muh brain

[–] JohnDClay 69 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

My immediate thought was wug, like the plural of fish is fish.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Unless you're sleeping with them. Then it's fishes.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago

It's when there are multiple species of fish. Mob guys are actually saying it correctly, as there are likely multiple types in the ocean when they lay people to rest there.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

Or when they are weird

[–] pancakes 6 points 5 months ago

I thought the plural of fish was "wet guys"

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 5 months ago (5 children)

This test screwed me up in first grade. I thought it was some kind of grammar test so I kept asking if it was a verb, a noun, or an adverb. The test giver was some researcher and was convinced I wasn't taking the test seriously because I wouldn't say wugs. He got kind of angry and I found the whole thing to be kind of distressing. I asked to stop and he just got even angrier and said something like, "No one has ever had trouble with the wug test before". I was convinced I was bad at grammar for years after that. Anyway, wugs! =)

[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like somebody was bad at giving out tests

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

I mean, that could have been it, but it seemed like everyone else got through unscathed. I was older than average, I was 7 and the rest of the kids were 6. I think that was his explanation anyway.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Based on the sentence construction it has to be a noun regardless of the meaning tho

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[–] mindbleach 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What a shite researcher. The whole point is to judge children's inferrence - that's why they don't use real words. There is no right answer. There's just an expected answer based on similar words.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

I wouldn't be too hard on him. I was a weird kid who grew up into a weird adult. I ended up doing lots of tests as a kid with him or researchers just like him. I did the test where you're told to electrocute a person if they answer a question wrong and they pretend to scream. And the test where they use a wire to knock over water bottles. I gave weird responses to those tests as well. I just started pressing the button for the electrocution and laughing. I apologized after. And when the water bottles got knocked over I just sat there and waited for him to come back. It occurred to me that I might get in trouble, but then I figured he would just take my word on it. I was like, "Your structure fell over!". These tests make for fun stories.

edit: With the electrocution test I definitely tried to reason with the researcher that electrocuting people wasn't scientific, but I very quickly realized he wasn't going to listen to me. I realized it was an opportunity to electrocute a person and that I was never getting another opportunity to do that ever, so I just went for it. Egg on my face when it turns out it's both not real and I'm a awful person. I did feel bad though.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 5 months ago
[–] Chef 42 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Wugs, if its an Anglo root, unless it's derived from Latin "Wug*, wugīs" in which case there are two Wugi (wûg-eye). Unless its one of the random Latin words where we don't do that and it's still "wugs." Unless it's a loanword from germanic then we might anglicise it or we might say "wugar." Because eNgLIsH iS EaSY...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago

Ooh sorry this is a weird one it’s actually “wugopodes”

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The correct plural is actually wug, or dialect weg.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

unless it’s derived from Latin “Wug*, wugīs” in which case there are two Wugi (wûg-eye).

Wouldn't a wug, wugis group noun be wuges plural?

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My daughter does the opposite in such an intelligent way. Kix cereal for example - one piece of it is a kik. And the singular for clothes is a cloe.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And the singular of sheep is shoop.

YES IT IS SHUT UP

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

Brings new meaning to the Salt-N-Pepa song.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This feels like a word that would be both singular and plural. Like sheep.

Two wug.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Only if the amount of wug is a prime number.

This is because non-prime numers of wuggi are highly unstable and will split into separate prime factors of wug if there's enough space (and in most atmospheric conditions).

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago (3 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Berko_Gleason

Gleason devised the Wug Test as part of her earliest research (1958), which used nonsense words to gauge children's acquisition of morphological rules‍—‌for example, the "default" rule that most English plurals are formed by adding an /s/, /z/, or /ɪz/ sound depending on the final consonant, e.g. hat–hats, eye–eyes, witch–witches. A child is shown simple pictures of a fanciful creature or activity, with a nonsense name, and prompted to complete a statement about it

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)
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[–] DaCrazyJamez 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Is this the r/linguistics logo bird

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Twugs the night before Christmas

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

OMG I just learned that there are also bik, kazh, and gutch.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

There are two plimben

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

There are two √ﷺ½⚠

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Wugim is biblically correct.

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