JustKristin

You think you have just the thing to fin­ish off your WWF (Words With Friends, peo­ple, Words With Friends—sheesh!) oppo­nent, only to find out that, this time, the *lack* of an “S” is what pre­vents you from kick­ing some vocab­u­laric arse:

• kudos: This one you knew was not the plural of “kudo”, the obscure fact a relic of some late-night Triv­ial Pur­suit game, half-drunken pub quiz or dear friend who taught your kid Attic Greek one summer…
• alms — Really? I mean, I guess… I can’t imag­ine giv­ing an alm, but there is almoner and almonry…
• gyros: This one was new to me, though. It seems that it has been made plural in Eng­lish and has a sin­gu­lar back-formation of gyro.

Really, tho, I am not com­plain­ing. The excep­tions are what make life beau­ti­ful, I think. It is just frus­trat­ing when an excep­tion pre­vents vic­tory. Ah, well. I have pub quiz fodder.