Okay, a serious post today; no comic. Here’s a quote fro the July/August Scientific American, page 59. It’s from an article about quantum mechanics:

…In this scenario, a qubit can be in some superposition of the values +1 and -1. Measuring a qubit
involves specifying something called a basis—think of it as a direction.

Now. What do you say when you need to refer to more than one basis? Would you say “basises”? Maybe something you would pronounce “basisees”? Well, the correct plural is ths same as the plural of “base,” like four bases in baseball. And Scientific American got it right! Here’s the next sentence:

Using different measurement bases can yield different results.

I confess I don’t know how to pronounce that version of “bases.” How would you pronounce it? Tell me in the comments.

Here’s a picture from another quantum article:

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Last panel. He mentions two things, then uses a singular verb. Is he wrong?

English is flexible. Sometimes we combine more than one thing into a single group. We often use a word for the group. For example, “the class is seated” but “the students are seated.” But sometimes we use the number of the verb to tell how we refer to the number of something. Be careful, though—doing this can mess up your sentence.

“Foots” instead of “feet,” but maybe it makes sense…

What do you think? Might there be a place for “foots”? What’s the plural of that mouse next to your keyboard?

I’m sure there’s a linguistic or etymological reason, but I don’t happen to know it. Do you? Think Chief and Leaf.

If you do know why, put it in the comments.

What is it when you refer to a single group of many? I say it’s still a plural, so I say this headline is incorrect:

Children are expensive – not just for parents, but the environment – so how many is too many?

Should be “how many are too many?”

That’s in a newsletter named The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/children-are-expensive-not-just-for-parents-but-the-environment-so-how-many-is-too-many-176662

Here’s the picture behind the headline: