Talk:axis

in french would be "axe" in singular and "axes" plurally

Tea room discussion
Is axises an alternative spelling or a common misspelling of the plural of axis? RJFJR 19:38, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It seems prevalent mostly in technical writings by authors for whom English may not be their first language. Not so rare in Groups and newspaper comments (but rare in articles). Hard to separate out from plural of ax/axe. I would favor misspelling. DCDuring TALK 20:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it's actually . Alternatively, we may wish to create a new or something, seeing as there are tons of these. —Ruakh TALK 00:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Not to be pedantic about it, but it seems not a "misconstruction" as much as a simplification, an application of a standard plural rule to what is seen as a standard English word. Increasingly I see the unreasonableness of trying to force people to learn which non-English plural rules are mandatory (Latin, Greek, Italian, Hebrew?) for good English and which are not (Lakota, Aramaic, Bantu). DCDuring TALK 01:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not Wiktionary's place to try to force people to talk a certain way, but it's also not our place to pretend that all ways of talking are equally standard. All the major online dictionaries — AHD, MW, Dict.com, OED — give the plural as axes: without comment, and they're borne out by practice in edited works. (Note: I'm speaking only of the senses that we actually define at axis:. Apparently it also refers to a kind of deer, and in that sense has plural axises:.) Your comment implicitly recognizes that certain things "are mandatory for good English"; why would you wish to deny our readers that same recognition? —Ruakh TALK 01:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Many languages have irregular forms, and it is usually considered erroneous to apply regular rules to these words. It's not unreasonable to “force” people to spell correctly.  In English, axises for axes is just a misspelling—or misconstruction, if we really feel so confident in explaining its mis-etymology. —Michael Z. 2008-07-18 02:09 z 

Vowel in plurals
I know that the plural axes is pronounced differently depending on if its from ax or axis. The former is with a short i /æksɪz/, the latter with a long one /æksi:z/. The question is: if there were a word *axy with a plural axies would it be the same as ax->axes or axis->axes? Or would it be even different? (Wiktionary rhymes imply that it would be /æksiz/, since babies is listed as /beɪbiz/. But is there really an audible distinction?) Thanks! Kolmiel (talk) 15:39, 5 April 2014 (UTC)