Isn't it courts-martial rather than court-martials?

[jpgray]

Just another piece of the puzzle proving me to be smarter than Tim Russert and Charlie Rose. ;-)

[Rick Myers]

1. You are correct!

:grr:

[jsw_81]

2. Yes

[yardwork]

3. Yes. William Safire gets his panties in a swivet over this kind of thing.

It's mothers-in-law, courts-martial, and attorneys-general.

The Onion once did a headline titled: "William Safire orders two Whoppers Jr."

[jpgray]

5. LOL, the Onion is hilarious. (nt)

[Bertha Venation]

8. LMAO @ the Onion "Whoppers Jr" LOLOL

:bounce:

[samhonk]

14. Whoppers Jr. ...

This reminds me of a long discussion I had with a friend about what the proper plural of "Sausage McMuffin with Egg" is. Along these lines I insisted it was "Sausages McMuffin with Egg".

[jpgray]

16. I think "Sausage" is in that case the adjective

And "McMuffin" is the noun, so it would be Sausage McMuffins.

[samhonk]

19. I agree, but

I was trying to be difficult and annoy my friend (it worked). But it could be reasonably argued that the construction "Sausages McMuffin" is analogous to "Eggs Benedict" with McMuffin being the adjective.

Is there such a thing as a single egg Benedict?

:)

[jpgray]

20. Yes, in a very real sense a McMuffin does modify a Sausage

:D

[jmowreader]

23. No. Different situation.

One serving of pre-born chickens w/Hollandaise sauce on 'em contains more than one pre-born chicken that you are so heinously aborting, so it's "eggs Benedict" you damn baby-killing lib'rul. ;) Hmmm...actually, if you weren't very hungry you could make an egg Benedict, I guess.

When you are in possession of more than one Sausage McMuffin, you have McMuffins with sausage in them, so it's sausage McMuffins.

That is, if you hate food so badly you'll eat a sausage McMuffin in the first place.

Then again, maybe they'll introduce a $1000 McMuffin with lobster, crab and half a pound of Beluga caviar in it...

[lancdem]

17. LOL

I love the Onion.

[LynzM]

4. I don't know about that one, but along the lines of

Tablespoonfulls vs. Tablespoonsfull
and
Mother-in-laws vs. Mothers-in-law

The second is correct in each case, and rarely, if ever, heard.

[Bertha Venation]

6. Yes. And did you see the miserable embarrassing typo on TV weeks ago?

The miniseries "10.5" -- which generally sucked. Late in the plot, martial law was declared.

At the bottom of the TV news screen, it read (I'm not making this up) MARSHAL LAW

IDIOTS! LAMEBRAINS! ASSHOLES!

[jpgray]

10. "Marshal Law"--an indie band made up of former servicemen? (nt)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

11. Yeah these guys spun off from the old Marshall Crenshaw band. n/t

[Shrek]

13. "Marshal Law" is correct

. . . if you're watching Gunsmoke.

;-)

[samhonk]

21. You can find "Marshal(l) law" on DU daily...

and a few things just today about "court marshalls", though I agree it's much worse to see it on TV where presumably professional writers are generating it.

I'm not a spelling-cop to the point that I correct people about it, but I sure get tired of seeing "speach", "senerio/scenerio/senario/etc.", "Isreal", "tenant (meaning tenet)", and so on.

My favorite misspelling of "Martial" was on a karate studio in California long ago - with a prominent window sign offering courses in MARITAL ARTS. I was too embarrassed to look inside. :)

[mmm]

7. both are correct

[democracyindanger]

15. Nope

'Courts-martial' is the only correct way. 'Court' is the noun, and is the only part that can be pluralized.

Sorry, I'm a grammar fascist ;)

[fryguy]

9. c'mon

you can't really expect people who don't bother investigating the news their fed to read on-air to actually bother with such things as the correct usage of the English language --- as has been pointed out elsewhere on DU, its also not WMDs and such....

[JohnLocke]

12. This is true; Webster's says the correct term is courts-martial.

[SCantiGOP]

18. It all started in 1066

The influence of French on English. In English, you should say a martial court, but the French influence switches the two words in order, so the noun still has to be the plural. That is why you have so many "dual" words in the law lexicon, such as "assault and battery" "to have and to hold" "breaking and entering" etc. They were not just being repetitive; in each case, one word derived from the French and one from old English.

[ForrestGump]

22. You uptight son of a b**ches. Oops.