The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
apply to a computer mouse?
--
Dieter Britz

On 2023-07-19 10:09, db wrote:
> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
> apply to a computer mouse?

It does to me. Other's may not agree.

--
All generalizations are bad.

On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 5:09:14 PM UTC+1, db wrote:
> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
> apply to a computer mouse?
> --
> Dieter Britz

Like so many other awkward decisions, you would skirt round it
wouldn't you? "Each of us has a mouse".

On 2023-07-19 16:49:22 +0000, lar3ryca said:

> On 2023-07-19 10:09, db wrote:
>> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
>> apply to a computer mouse?
>
> It does to me. Other's may not agree.

Me too, but it's rare to need a plural at all. Navi can probably devise
a sentence that needs one, however.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 36 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 19:12:21 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<athel.cb@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 2023-07-19 16:49:22 +0000, lar3ryca said:
>
>> On 2023-07-19 10:09, db wrote:
>>> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
>>> apply to a computer mouse?
>>
>> It does to me. Other's may not agree.
>
>Me too, but it's rare to need a plural at all. Navi can probably devise
>a sentence that needs one, however.

Before I purchased the laptop my wife now uses, she used my desktop to
read her mail and a few other things. I use a mouse with my left
hand, and she uses the mouse with her right hand.

Moving a corded mouse from one side of the keyboard to the other was a
pain, so I bought second corded mouse for her side.

Did my set-up have two mice or two mouses?

--

Tony Cooper - Orlando,Florida

On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 12:09:14 PM UTC-4, db wrote:

> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
> apply to a computer mouse?

It usually does, but that's a bit exceptional.

Usually an adaptation of a word in an extended meaning gives
up its "irregular" inflections. If a baseball player hit a fly ball, he
flied out, not he flew out.)

It bothers me that the past tense of "to gaslight" -- i.e. to make
someone think they're crazy, as in the original movie -- is sometimes "
he gaslit her" rather than "he gaslighted her." (Though why that's
become 'he stopped responding to her', I understand not.)

(I'm happy to see the squiggler doesn't like "gaslit" but accepts
"gaslighted.")

On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 18:09:09 +0200, db <dieterhansbritz@gmail.com>
wrote:

>The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
>apply to a computer mouse?

Yes.

With a quizzical look, TonyCooper observed:
> On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 19:12:21 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
> <athel.cb@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2023-07-19 16:49:22 +0000, lar3ryca said:
>>
>>> On 2023-07-19 10:09, db wrote:
>>>> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
>>>> apply to a computer mouse?
>>>
>>> It does to me. Other's may not agree.
>>
>> Me too, but it's rare to need a plural at all. Navi can probably devise
>> a sentence that needs one, however.
>
> Before I purchased the laptop my wife now uses, she used my desktop to
> read her mail and a few other things. I use a mouse with my left
> hand, and she uses the mouse with her right hand.
>
> Moving a corded mouse from one side of the keyboard to the other was a
> pain, so I bought second corded mouse for her side.
>
> Did my set-up have two mice or two mouses?

Yes.

/dps "but wye corded?"

--
Maybe C282Y is simply one of the hangers-on, a groupie following a
future guitar god of the human genome: an allele with undiscovered
virtuosity, currently soloing in obscurity in Mom's garage.
Bradley Wertheim, theAtlantic.com, Jan 10 2013

On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 10:12:29 AM UTC-7, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2023-07-19 16:49:22 +0000, lar3ryca said:
>
> > On 2023-07-19 10:09, db wrote:
> >> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
> >> apply to a computer mouse?
> >
> > It does to me. Other's may not agree.
> Me too, but it's rare to need a plural at all. Navi can probably devise
> a sentence that needs one, however.
>
Wikipedia says it's either. Both mice and mouses are in use, with mice
being slightly more common.

bill

On 2023-07-19 12:25, TonyCooper wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 19:12:21 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
> <athel.cb@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2023-07-19 16:49:22 +0000, lar3ryca said:
>>
>>> On 2023-07-19 10:09, db wrote:
>>>> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
>>>> apply to a computer mouse?
>>>
>>> It does to me. Other's may not agree.
>>
>> Me too, but it's rare to need a plural at all. Navi can probably devise
>> a sentence that needs one, however.
>
> Before I purchased the laptop my wife now uses, she used my desktop to
> read her mail and a few other things. I use a mouse with my left
> hand, and she uses the mouse with her right hand.
>
> Moving a corded mouse from one side of the keyboard to the other was a
> pain, so I bought second corded mouse for her side.
>
> Did my set-up have two mice or two mouses?

You do realize that the likely answer to that is 'yes'.

--
What do you call a fish without an eye?
Fsh.

On 20/07/23 03:12, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2023-07-19 16:49:22 +0000, lar3ryca said:
>
>> On 2023-07-19 10:09, db wrote:
>>> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
>>> apply to a computer mouse?
>>
>> It does to me. Other's may not agree.
>
> Me too, but it's rare to need a plural at all. Navi can probably devise
> a sentence that needs one, however.

I agree with both of you, but I've certainly met people who wouldn't agree.

"I hate these meeses to pieces". Now, where did that come from?

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

Le 19/07/2023 à 19:25, TonyCooper a écrit :
>
> Before I purchased the laptop my wife now uses, she used my desktop to
> read her mail and a few other things. I use a mouse with my left
> hand, and she uses the mouse with her right hand.
>
> Moving a corded mouse from one side of the keyboard to the other was a
> pain, so I bought second corded mouse for her side.
>
> Did my set-up have two mice or two mouses?

'Mice' is many times commoner:

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=computer+mice%2Ccomputer+mouses&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3>

Though right-handed, I have my mouse on the left, for two reasons. It's
less of a stretch than if I had it to the right of the numeric keypad,
and therefore probably more ergonomic; and it develops my left-hand
motor skills.

Hibou wrote:

> Though right-handed, I have my mouse on the left, for two reasons. It's
> less of a stretch than if I had it to the right of the numeric keypad,
> and therefore probably more ergonomic; and it develops my left-hand
> motor skills.

I amalso right-handed, and I use my mouse with my left. The reason is
that I played Diablo II and III for hours every day. This resulted in
tensions and small pains in my left arm, so I moved the mouse to the
left and I haven'tchanged back except for short periods. It took a
little of getting used to, but it worked okay from the start.

For me it's no problem to move the mouse to the other side. I just have
to lift it over the keyboard. And it's a cabled mouse. I have tried two
cordless mice. They ate up the battery power so fast that I dropped the
idea. And my mice have cost around $7.

--
Bertel, Denmark

Le 20/07/2023 à 07:06, Bertel Lund Hansen a écrit :
>  Hibou wrote:
>>
>> Though right-handed, I have my mouse on the left, for two reasons.
>> It's less of a stretch than if I had it to the right of the numeric
>> keypad, and therefore probably more ergonomic; and it develops my
>> left-hand motor skills.
>
> I amalso right-handed, and I use my mouse with my left. The reason is
> that I played Diablo II and III for hours every day. This resulted in
> tensions and small pains in my left arm, so I moved the mouse to the
> left and I haven'tchanged back except for short periods. It took a
> little of getting used to, but it worked okay from the start.
>
> For me it's no problem to move the mouse to the other side. I just have
> to lift it over the keyboard. And it's a cabled mouse. I have tried two
> cordless mice. They ate up the battery power so fast that I dropped the
> idea. And my mice have cost around $7.

Yes, cheap cabled mice do the job fine.

I adapted rapidly to having the mouse on the left, as did Mme Hibou. The
only slight inconvenience is having to change the setting for online
banking. For this, I boot from a read-only Live Ubuntu drive, which by
default assumes the mouse is on the right. (A read-only drive cannot be
infected with viruses.)

Hibou wrote:

> I adapted rapidly to having the mouse on the left, as did Mme Hibou. The
> only slight inconvenience is having to change the setting for online
> banking. For this, I boot from a read-only Live Ubuntu drive, which by
> default assumes the mouse is on the right. (A read-only drive cannot be
> infected with viruses.)

.... unless it alreadfy is, but I assume that you have it in a safe way.

--
Bertel, Denmark

On 19.07.2023 18.49, lar3ryca wrote:
> On 2023-07-19 10:09, db wrote:
>> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
>> apply to a computer mouse?
>
> It does to me. Other's may not agree.
>
Other's what?
Sorry, pedantic me.
--
Dieter Britz

db:

> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
> apply to a computer mouse?

One box ("computer"), two boxen.
One mouse, two mousen.

--
John

On 20/07/23 20:00, John Dunlop wrote:
> db:
>
>> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this apply to
>> a computer mouse?
>
> One box ("computer"), two boxen. One mouse, two mousen.

I have a vague memory that in Old English you have to use the genitive
case with numbers. That would give

ān mūs, twēġen mūsa

I'm not fully confident about that rule, though. I might even be
thinking about a different language.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Thu, 20 Jul 2023 20:38:30 +1000
Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

> On 20/07/23 20:00, John Dunlop wrote:
> > db:
> >
> >> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this apply to
> >> a computer mouse?
> >
> > One box ("computer"), two boxen. One mouse, two mousen.
>
> I have a vague memory that in Old English you have to use the genitive
> case with numbers. That would give
>
> ān mūs, twēġen mūsa
>
> I'm not fully confident about that rule, though. I might even be
> thinking about a different language.

In Somerset they still use Olde English (to water down the scrumpy)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaymer_Cider_Company#Olde_English_cider

or maybe not now; another fine tradition gorn.
--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

On Thu, 20 Jul 2023 08:56:24 +0100, Hibou
<vpaereru-unmonitored@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote:

>Le 20/07/2023 à 07:06, Bertel Lund Hansen a écrit :
>>  Hibou wrote:
>>>
>>> Though right-handed, I have my mouse on the left, for two reasons.
>>> It's less of a stretch than if I had it to the right of the numeric
>>> keypad, and therefore probably more ergonomic; and it develops my
>>> left-hand motor skills.
>>
>> I amalso right-handed, and I use my mouse with my left. The reason is
>> that I played Diablo II and III for hours every day. This resulted in
>> tensions and small pains in my left arm, so I moved the mouse to the
>> left and I haven'tchanged back except for short periods. It took a
>> little of getting used to, but it worked okay from the start.
>>
>> For me it's no problem to move the mouse to the other side. I just have
>> to lift it over the keyboard. And it's a cabled mouse. I have tried two
>> cordless mice. They ate up the battery power so fast that I dropped the
>> idea. And my mice have cost around $7.
>
>Yes, cheap cabled mice do the job fine.

I keep my mouse on the right of the keyboard, but I greatly prefer
cabled mice. When I tried a wireless mouse, I continually knocked it
off the desk and onto the floor. It eventually broke.

Mine wasn't very cheap, but it wasn't very expensive either. It's an
Anker ergonomic vertical mouse, which If I remember correctly was
around $20-$25. I find that using a vertical mouse is much more
comfortable than the traditional horizontal ones.

On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 13:32:38 -0700 (PDT), "bil...@shaw.ca"
<billvan@shaw.ca> wrote:

>On Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 10:12:29?AM UTC-7, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> On 2023-07-19 16:49:22 +0000, lar3ryca said:
>>
>> > On 2023-07-19 10:09, db wrote:
>> >> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
>> >> apply to a computer mouse?
>> >
>> > It does to me. Other's may not agree.
>> Me too, but it's rare to need a plural at all. Navi can probably devise
>> a sentence that needs one, however.

My current mouse is the best of all the mice I've owned.

>Wikipedia says it's either. Both mice and mouses are in use, with mice
>being slightly more common.

Regardless of what Wikipedia says, to me "mice" is *far* more common.
I don't remember ever hearing or seeing "mouses."

Incidentally, when I pressed Send and Agent did its spell check, it
said "mouses" was a spelling error.

On Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 3:56:30 AM UTC-4, Hibou wrote:
> Le 20/07/2023 à 07:06, Bertel Lund Hansen a écrit :

> > For me it's no problem to move the mouse to the other side. I just have
> > to lift it over the keyboard. And it's a cabled mouse. I have tried two
> > cordless mice. They ate up the battery power so fast that I dropped the
> > idea. And my mice have cost around $7.
>
> Yes, cheap cabled mice do the job fine.
>
> I adapted rapidly to having the mouse on the left, as did Mme Hibou. The
> only slight inconvenience is having to change the setting for online
> banking. For this, I boot from a read-only Live Ubuntu drive, which by
> default assumes the mouse is on the right. (A read-only drive cannot be
> infected with viruses.)

Why would it care which side the mouse is on? How would it even know?
Do you have to plug it into a different USB port?

Mine is on the left because I had a cervical nerve problem, and there
was no particular reason to put it back on the right. Especially if I was
likely to be writing something at the same time.

On 2023-07-20 03:42, db wrote:
> On 19.07.2023 18.49, lar3ryca wrote:
>> On 2023-07-19 10:09, db wrote:
>>> The plural of mouse is mice, as we all know. But does this
>>> apply to a computer mouse?
>>
>> It does to me. Other's may not agree.
>>
> Other's what?
> Sorry, pedantic me.

No apologies required.
Careless typer, me.

--
Funny, I don't remember being absent minded...

Ken Blake wrote:

>> Wikipedia says it's either. Both mice and mouses are in use, with mice
>> being slightly more common.
>
>
> Regardless of what Wikipedia says, to me "mice" is *far* more common.
> I don't remember ever hearing or seeing "mouses."

An Ngram with "computer mouses,computer mice" says that "mice" is almost
10 times more common. From 1972 to 1981 there were no "mouses".

--
Bertel, Denmark

Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:

> An Ngram with "computer mouses,computer mice" says that "mice" is almost
> 10 times more common. From 1972 to 1981 there were no "mouses".

.... in connection with "computer". "Mouses" alone occurs from 1800 and
is not extremely seldom (5 zeros after the point).

--
Bertel, Denmark