The Plural of Thrips
Much the same can be said of the Thrips, those tiny plant insects that haven't so much as a decent singular to their name, one wished to specify an individual Thrips. You may speak many Thrips, or of one Thrips, but never of one Thrip, how strongly you may feel that such a ruling is in restraint of 'our personal liberties. Nor may you employ the word Thripses to mean one or more Thrips, convenient as it might be in a pinch. The New English Dictionary states, with what end in view I don't know, unless to give its readers a false sense of security - and if so, it failed in my case - that the analogical English plural of Thrips would be Thripses, but what good is lat if youou mustn't say it? As our language develops, the word thripses, to in indicate more than one Thrips, may fall naturally enough into our common speech. I fancy that whoever used it now would do so at the risk of looking pretty analogical.
Notes:
Taxonomies:
/business and industrial/agriculture and forestry/crops and seed (0.630734)
/science/social science/linguistics/translation (0.230011)
/health and fitness/disease (0.133832)
Keywords:
Thrips (0.951851 (negative:-0.405649)), individual Thrips (0.829552 (neutral:0.000000)), tiny plant insects (0.684672 (negative:-0.289797)), New English Dictionary (0.607490 (neutral:0.000000)), personal liberties (0.497381 (positive:0.515304)), false sense (0.485561 (negative:-0.565028)), common speech (0.464030 (positive:0.205932)), word thripses (0.442443 (neutral:0.000000)), Plural (0.385234 (negative:-0.529324)), restraint (0.352673 (positive:0.515304)), pinch (0.351149 (positive:0.317383)), ruling (0.348165 (positive:0.515304)), indicate (0.344693 (neutral:0.000000)), risk (0.333631 (positive:0.578566)), states (0.332552 (neutral:0.000000)), end (0.332477 (negative:-0.335264)), view (0.332440 (negative:-0.335264)), readers (0.332253 (negative:-0.565028)), security (0.332159 (negative:-0.565028)), case (0.331972 (negative:-0.498706))
Entities:
Thripses:Person (0.890947 (neutral:0.000000)), youou:Person (0.740226 (negative:-0.304184))
Concepts:
English language (0.975196): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Oxford English Dictionary (0.851966): website | dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago
Plural (0.841304): dbpedia | freebase
Language (0.711402): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
English-language films (0.677598): dbpedia
Plurale tantum (0.672540): dbpedia | freebase
Grammatical number (0.613907): dbpedia | freebase
Insects (0.595279): dbpedia
How to Become Extinct