Steve writes:

>WRT "rules...of which most people have no knowledge": if a "rule of
grammar"
>exists only in the minds of a tiny fraction of the population, it may be
>appropriate to question both its value and its existence as a "rule". For
>example, I hate the word "appendixes". However, almost any time I use the
>"correct" term "appendices", I get asked what I'm talking about. Am I the
>only "correct" person in the area, and the other three thousand people
>around me are "wrong"?

In that same vein, the city I live in is Las Cruces, NM. The name was chosen
to determine whether you're a gringo or not. How you pronouce "Las Cruces" is
a test that most gringoes fail, even though "Cruces", is a perfectly good
English word also. It's the proper plural of "crux" (look it up in your
favorite dictionary), although "cruxes" has become common enough to appear in
some dictionaries nowadays.

The original Latin word "crux" meant "cross," not in the religious sense, but
as in "to cross an ocean" or to "cross out a mistake." When Latin evolved in
Spanish, the "x's" became "z's", so the Spanish word became "cruz", while the
English equivalent became "cruise," pronounced virtually identically.

Thus, the next time that you hear that Tom Cruise is cruising with Penelope
Cruz and that they've become cross with one another, simply say to yourself,
"It's all right. They're all derived from the same word."

Wirt Atmar
Las Cruces, NM

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