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...

 Eccentric English Spelling is the Result of Dictionaries

The eccentric spelling of the English language is preserved because of a pervasive meme that there are right and wrong ways to spell words. This meme has all kinds of support, including dictionaries, computer spell-checkers, and children's spelling bees. But before the Use a dictionary strategy-meme became prevalent during the 18th and 19th centuries, people spelled words any way they wanted. It's not True that there's one and only one correct way to spell a word-it's just a meme. As Mark Twa...