Rouse

Today's vocabulary word for the day is "ROUSE". "Rouse", as everyone knows, is the singular form of the noun "rice", which of course is the name for a bunch of those grains which serve as a dietary staple in many parts of the world, and are commonly served as part of Chinese and Mexican dinners. When you have only one of them it's a "rouse".

Please remember this word: "rouse". And remember its proper plural form: "rice". There is no such word as "rouses" and it just sounds silly.

OK, I made up "rouse" as well. But I did so for a reason, as a (hopefully) memorable trick to correct a peculiar grammatical failing that many computer users have. Show them one of those upside-down trackballs on a cord, commonly used as a pointing device, and they'll tell you it's a "mouse". Show them two or more, and they will quite often tell you that they are "mouses". They are not; they are "mice". If you have three of them of the non-optical variety, they are "three blind mice". Got it?

I don't know what it is exactly that causes people to forget this childhood lesson in irregular plurals, when the mouse in question is electronic rather than organic. But they do. And it drives me nucking futs. So please try to commit this lesson to memory. And if you don't, be prepared for someone to pat you on the head like a 3-year-old and earnestly explain to you with a patronising smile that the plural of "mouse" is "mice".

No go run along and play.