Tell me more ×
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 7 down vote favorite
1

I wrote something about the food. And I use flavors for plural flavor, however my foreign English teacher corrected it as flavorx. And he considers that I also should read 'flavors'.

I googled the word 'flavorx', but I almost can't find it used in the articles. Is 'flavorx' the right spell in that context?

Update on Jan 18,

I'm communicating with teachers via email. So I don't know who answered me. I raised my doubt to the teachers again. The new reply says I can only use flavor or flavors (plural) as in taste or tastes.

share|improve this question
15  
Oh dear, either this question is a troll, or you need to run away from your English teacher as fast as you can and never listen to anything he says ever again. – nohat♦ Jan 17 '11 at 6:53
2  
What those two said. Always keep in the back of your mind that teachers are not perfect. But this teacher, assuming it's true, is... what's a good word for something that's so bad that you need to invent a new word for it? – Jürgen A. Erhard Jan 17 '11 at 8:23
3  
@jae: I think that borken might be fitting. :) urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=borken – Guffa Jan 17 '11 at 9:48
@nohat, we are communicating via email, so I'll try to grab him to confirm that. – Kane Jan 17 '11 at 14:25
5  
I think FX_ has the answer: it probably was a cross to mark that the s was wrong, not an x. – Cerberus Jan 18 '11 at 0:25
show 2 more comments

8 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

Here's an alternative possibility: you wrote flavors, and your English teacher crossed the s because the singular ought to be used instead, so it now looks like flavorX.

share|improve this answer
This seems most likely. – Jon Purdy Jan 17 '11 at 17:16
3  
+1 That is probably it. This is similar to how the French plural -x came into existence: it was merely a strike-through of the elongated line of the preceding letter in manuscripts, which stood for -s but was mistaken for an x by later readers. – Cerberus Jan 18 '11 at 0:21
@Cerberus: is that serious or a joke? That’s very cool if it’s serious! — and nicely reminiscent of the origin of ye olde, too. – PLL Jan 18 '11 at 2:32
1  
@PLL: When I realised that I might have put it the same way had it been a joke, that made me chuckle. But, no, it is true: my palaeography teacher told me so, and I have seen countless cross-shaped abbreviations, like this: inkunabeln.ub.uni-koeln.de/vdibProduction/handapparat/nachs_w/… – Cerberus Jan 18 '11 at 3:27
up vote 8 down vote

*Flavorx is not a word. The correct spelling is flavors (American) or flavours (British).

share|improve this answer
up vote 6 down vote

Unless you are referring to the commercial Pediatric System Flavorx (see picture below "FLAVORxTM"), this spelling doesn't seem adequate in any context.
Flavors remains the official plural of flavor.

alt text

share|improve this answer
up vote 5 down vote

The plural of flavor is flavors. flavorx does not exist. In fact, x is never used to pluralize English words, except some of those adopted from other languages.

share|improve this answer
up vote 4 down vote

I don't know where that plural form comes from. Perhaps there is some other word where it's used, but it's definitely not used for flavor.

share|improve this answer
up vote 2 down vote

The letter x is used to pluralize French loanwords, such as bureau ⇒ bureaux. (At least, it can be, although Firefox's automatic spell checker disagrees with that.) It is well suited to such pretentious constructions as eaux de cologne.

Unless it ends in eau, don't add x. For that matter, just use s; this rule is the least of your worries.

share|improve this answer
up vote 2 down vote

How was the word 'flavors' used in the original sentence? Saying "The food had nice flavors" is not common and you should have used the singular form "The food had a nice flavor" instead.

However, if you describe a store as selling "many different flavors of ice-cream", then 'flavors' is correct.

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

You should ask your teacher whether he referred Flavorx as plural of flavor. If he say Yes, then you should correct him about it that there is no such word (not yet).

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.