[Iss Mneur]

In response to High Max's comment, and to not drag the discussion in that thread even further off topic:

It is 'busses', not 'buses'. Not having a double consonant in this case and in most scenerios in English when followed by certain suffixes makes the previous vowel have a long sound instead of a short sound.

I personally have always spelt it buses. As does my spelling checker in Firefox (it even goes so far as to flag 'busses' as being spelt wrong). Same story with the spelling checker on this forum. So I decided to google it.

Google Fight: Buses (2,820,000) vs. Busses (340,000)

The New York Times: Buses (52,700) vs Busses (1,080)

The Edmonton Journal: Buses (2,350) vs Busses (162)

The Daily Herald Tribune (my local paper): Buses (352) vs Busses (3)

So, it seems that while Busses does get used, it is far from the most popular spelling of the word.

[The E]

Not actually relevant but german "Bus" has the plural "Busse".

[headdie]

we are missing the option that reads something like "English is constantly evolving, only the royal family and posh ****s use queens English so who cared "

[QuantumDelta]

we are missing the option that reads something like "English is constantly evolving, only the royal family and posh ****s use queens English so who cared "

The BBC, pretty much anyone communicating internationally, anyone with an education, anyone in a profession.

?

[Herra Tohtori]

What sort of bus are we talking about anyway?

Public transportation vehicle? Electrical bus? Computer bus (like front side bus or PCI bus)?

Or perhaps Bank of United States (which of course is a proper noun and doesn't have plural)?


The etymology of the word is a bit tricky. The original omnibus vehicles were horse-drawn carriages used in public transportation. The word omnibus means "for all" but when they were motorized the term nonsensically changed to "autobus", from which "bus" is a shortened form.

So originally "bus" is a preposition rather than a noun, which doesn't really give much help in trying to figure out what a correct latin plural of the world would be (prepositions rarely have plurals after all).

As such, it would seem that the established use of the word would define the most correct and agreed upon spelling, meaning that I would rather use the form buses. Both seem to be acceptable plural forms however, so there's no real reason to burst a vessel from the use of either, even if you prefer the other.

[Scotty]

I say "busses," because everytime I see "buses," I automatically pronounce it "byu-ses."

[Iss Mneur]

What sort of bus are we talking about anyway?

Public transportation vehicle? Electrical bus? Computer bus (like front side bus or PCI bus)?

Or perhaps Bank of United States (which of course is a proper noun and doesn't have plural)?

Based on the thread the quote comes from, the off-topic topic was aerodynamics of buses and semi-trucks. As far as I know only public transportation or more likely, long range coach type buses (Greyhound, charter, etc) would have a concern with aerodynamics.

The etymology of the word is a bit tricky. The original omnibus vehicles were horse-drawn carriages used in public transportation. The word omnibus means "for all" but when they were motorized the term nonsensically changed to "autobus", from which "bus" is a shortened form.

So originally "bus" is a preposition rather than a noun, which doesn't really give much help in trying to figure out what a correct latin plural of the world would be (prepositions rarely have plurals after all).

As such, it would seem that the established use of the word would define the most correct and agreed upon spelling, meaning that I would rather use the form buses. Both seem to be acceptable plural forms however, so there's no real reason to burst a vessel from the use of either, even if you prefer the other.

I agree.  For the record and those that don't feel like reading the other thread, all I did was spell buses the way I would spell it in my post, I didn't change anything in what I quoted.  That is, it didn't bother me, but as I recently found out (about two years ago,) that in the case of the possessive form of a word that ends in an s both a solitary ' and 's are both valid spellings as an attempt to simplify English.  So I thought I would ask a more international crowd about how they spell buses.

Also, I believe you missed autoomnibus ( or automnibus, which seems to be (part of) a name of a Spanish company) as the middle stage.  Both of which are a bit a mouth full.

we are missing the option that reads something like "English is constantly evolving, only the royal family and posh ****s use queens English so who cared "

I feel the same way, but I want you to pick a side.

[TopAce]

It's "buses". There's an "e" /i/ sound in it, which is an auxiliary sound. so why add another letter that doesn't even contribute to the given word's phonological realization (=pronunciation)?

I think "busses" is just a common misspelling that has become so common that it's starting to be accepted (dictionary.com lists this as an alternative spelling of "buses", so not a common misspelling like independance). Frankly, I haven't seen "busses" until I read this thread.

I will do some dictionary research in the following couple of days anyway, so I might as well check what dictionaries say about "bus" while I'm at it. An Internet dictionary listing it as an alternative spelling and a print dictionary including it are two different things. Oxford for example tends to be very picky about which alternative spellings to include. Even if "busses" becomes more common in the next, say, two years, the next editions of print dictionaries (most likely) won't include it.

Some further examples of singular s# plural forms ending in ...sses# would be great (the #, I think, denotes the end of the word).

[watsisname]

Just like the plural of "gas" is "gases", not "gasses".

[Kopachris]

Just like the plural of "gas" is "gases", not "gasses".

That always bugged me.  I think it should be bussen.  I saw a flock of bussen.

[Solatar]

The OED 2nd edition doesn't actually list a plural for "bus", since the word is just a shortening of omnibus.  

Reproduced here is a section for your convenience (I have access through my university)

omnibus, n. and adj.

Plural omnibuses, omnibi, (rare) omnibusses, omnibus's. [< French omnibus (apparently 1825: see note below; 1835 in voiture omnibus; 1867 in sense ‘supplementary waiter with no fixed duties’ (compare sense A. 6)) < classical Latin omnibus ‘for all’, dative plural of omnis all (see OMNI- comb. form).
  According to Französisches Etymol. Wörterbuch s.v. Omnis, the earliest use in French was in 1825, reportedly to denote vehicles run by a M. Baudry for the purpose of transporting passengers between Nantes and a nearby bathing place. The idea for the name is said further to have come from a tradesman with the surname Omnès who had the legend Omnès omnibus written on the nameplate of his firm; as applied to the vehicle, the name was probably intended partly in order to make a distinction with the earlier carosses (first suggested by Pascal, and found from the late 17th cent.) which were more exclusive.
  In form omnibi (in e.g. quots. 1840 at sense A. 1, 1902 at sense A. 1, and quot. 1969 at sense A. 3b) representing an assumed or (humorously) confected ‘plural’ of classical Latin omnibus, after Latin plurals in -i. Compare the following, similar use of omnibi, after Latin genitive singular forms in -i:
  1889 E. DOWSON Let. 23 June (1967) 85, I trust you arrived chez toi{em}in all sobriety last night & accomplished the decensus Av{em}I should say omnibi with discretion.]

Since, unlike many other languages (German and French come to mind), English doesn't actually have a central 'governing' body concerning what's right and wrong in a language, you have options for a plural to 'bus', since it's really a familiar non-standard word anyway.  Consistency is the rule of the day.  Just pick one and stay with it.

I may decide to opt for the Latin plural and go for one bus, two bi.  Sure it comes from a preposition, but hell...let's make it a second declension masculine noun.  

But, for discussion; there's no reason to double the s.  Generally, English simply adds -es to words that end in s or double s to signify plural.  This is probably an 'overextension' of a perceived rule, as there are comparatively few words that end in single 's' versus 'ss', so when we see plurals from words that end in this sound we want to see two 's's.  Of course, honestly there aren't really many words that end in either. . .

'bosses' 'masses' 'kisses' 'losses' sets a pattern that some people seem to want to see continued in 'busses' (I've seen gasses as well), even though it's technically incorrect.

[TopAce]

I checked two dictionaries: the Oxford Advanced Leaner's Dictionary (OALD), 7th Edition (2005), and Webster's New World Dictionary (1999).

OALD gives busses as a US alternative spelling, while Webster gives busses as simply an alternative. A similar word is bussing, but it's about the gerund (-ing) form, which has a different word formation and spelling convention. Busing would be formed from buse, which as far as I'm aware, isn't a word. For the plural, there's no reason to double the -s, unlike in the case of the -ing form, from which you can - theoretically - predict which word it comes from.

Okay: so it's clear that it's a US alternative spelling, which may or may not come from a misunderstanding of pluralization rules. We've got a suspicious minimal pair* here: boss and bus that are pronounced almost identically in General American English, with the vowel being a bit longer in boss. Since English doesn't have long consonants in pronunciation (unlike say Hungarian), it's easy to mix up the two, and reach the conclusion that if it's bosses, then the plural form of a similarly pronounced word bus should logically be busses, because the difference is one phoneme. This phonetic similarity is valid for speakers of American English, so I think that's the reason it's a US alternative spelling.

Unfortunately, words that end in a lone 's' are very rare in English. I found some medical and biological terms, some of which are indicated by a 'U' (meaning uncountable) or their plural forms are not specified (meaning they're regular, so no duplication of the 's' letters.)

What's correct and what's incorrect cannot be judged based on logic or a given word's etymology or semantics. As much as to-day was the accepted spelling of today some one hundred years ago, it's not correct today, because language is based on conventions, so if speakers of the given language agree that a certain form is correct, it's gonna be used. If people suddenly start to realize they prefer the until-then alternative spelling of a given word, and start using it in such a way, then it'll become the standard spelling. Some decades later, people will simply not realize that their spelling system now actually prefers the "alternative" or "logically incorrect" spelling. The current poll indicates that buses still maintains its preference over busses, so I don't expect that busses would become the preferred spelling very soon, if at all; not to mention speakers of British and Australian English who pronounce the vowels in boss and bus in a recognizably different manner.

I hope this reply has been informative.

* A minimal pair is a pair of words that differ in one phoneme only.

[Solatar]

Now this is the kind of discussion I like to see. 

[Snail]

AWESOME

[jdjtcagle]