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Thursday, August 27, 2015

Mice or Mouses

I currently work at the bookstore at my university. While working today, two of my managers asked me if I preferred mice or mouses. Let me repeat that- mice or mouses... The question immediately caught me off guard. My reply was that I prefer mice since, well, mouses is not a word. 

Turns out that the reason I was asked was because at store we have a wall of accessories for computers. One of my managers, let's call her Christine, told a customer that the product they needed was under the computer mouses. This started a lengthy conversion amongst employees. How do you say computer mouse in plural? How do you say it without sounding like a fool? 

It's tricky. We decided to google "what is the plural for computer mouse" and came up with different answers. Of course, mice is grammatically correct but then that brings to mind a small furry rodent. Here's the thing, the word mouse for a computer is actually an acronym that means Manually-Operated User-Selection Equipment. In this case would we just add a lowercase s at the end and call it mouses?  
I know, I know this is a controversial topic. Us English speakers need to get together and make final and ultimate decision. What is it, mice or mouses? 

Which do you prefer? I would tell you what I think it should be but I don't want to influence your opinion.

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