A Question of Sausage

30th October, 2006 @ 5:31pm UTC

Grammar, Literature, Monday, Spelling, Thoughts, Writing / 6 Comments

An image of two sausages on a plate

“Sausage” is a bizarre word. Consider the following:

Last night, I had 4 sausages with my mash. I could’ve eaten another sausage, but then I would have eaten A LOT of sausage.

What’s the plural of “sausage”? Is it “sausages” or is it “sausage”?

P.S. It’s Monday — don’t ask!

Update: Uh… I do realise that sausage isn’t the only word that exhibits this particular behaviour, I just wondered what that behaviour is called. Oh, and sausage is a slightly silly word which helps.

(Photo by pinkbelt — Found via Flickr)

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Comments (6)

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  1. Gravatar Image Hayo Bethlehem October 31, 2006 @ 2:51 pm

    “sausage” seems to be the container reference to the goo inside the skin. So in that sense, i guess sausage and sausages are both correct; sausage referring to a heap of goo, and sausages more referring to the type of container.

  2. Gravatar Image Tim October 31, 2006 @ 3:20 pm

    @ Hayo: Good call… Oh wait, but the same couldn’t be said if you substitute “sausage” with something else; like “apple” for instance:

    Last night, I had 4 apples with my mash. I could’ve eaten another apple, but then I would have eaten A LOT of apple.

    It still works — grammatically and culinarily (that isn’t a word, is it?)…

  3. Gravatar Image Hayo Bethlehem November 1, 2006 @ 9:20 am

    I’m now hungry.

  4. Gravatar Image Chrissy T November 22, 2006 @ 6:26 pm

    The following could also work:

    Last night, I had 4 minges with my sausage. I could’ve eaten another minge, but then I would have eaten A LOT of minge.

    Completely hypothetical of course. Isn’t minge a funny word?!

  5. Gravatar Image soldinio November 24, 2006 @ 2:00 pm

    The plural of a sausage is two sausages.
    The plural of sausage, is sausage meats

    But what is the plural of “chaos” ?

    D

  6. Gravatar Image Alin M March 6, 2008 @ 9:13 pm

    Words like that are called “uncountable nouns” — or at least that’s what they told me when I was learning English. Food, fruit and money are in the same category. What I find interesting is that here in the US one can hear “foods” or “fruits” but never “monies.” Why is that? Money is actually “more” countable than food and fruit :-)

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