No, it’s tortoise. As a rule, titles and phrases, like “the tortoise and the hare,” are treated as single lexical units and don’t vary the word choice with shifts in dialect.

I think when pressed, most Americans would acknowledge awareness of the technical tortoise/turtle distinction. But they just don’t make the distinction in casual speech.

So does “turtles all the way down” refer to the land-based or semi-aquatic species or is it just left to the imagination? I always had visions of what we in the UK call turtles.

A profound cosmological conundrum.

It’s sea turtles. They swim in the luminiferous ether.

Perhaps it’s a Mock Turtle and it swims in the soup.

Q So what’s the difference between mock turtle soup and pea soup?
A Anyone can mock turtle soup.

No, it’s not mock turtle as that’s singular and “turtles” plural go all the way down. Another conundrum for the considerable combined cosmological intellects of Dr Techie and Dave Wilton: after which species (semi-aquatic or land-based) are turtle-neck sweaters named? I would imagine land-based, but I may be wrong.

As an instructive aside, I have just learned that the plural of conundrum is conundrums, not conundra. Ever. The word was probably coined long ago as a joke.

Wait for it ........

But the plural of Prius is still Prii, right?

OP Tipping - 18 June 2012 03:39 PM

But the plural of Prius is still Prii, right?

I’ve heard that it’s Priori.

Wait for it ........

How long do we have to wait…

Actually, the Latin plural of prius is priores.

Actually, the Latin plural of prius is priores.

Crikey, it’s only Tuesday and I’ve already learnt my thing for the week.

Why’s that, then?

Now unlearn. Latin prius is an adverb, meaning earlier, prior, so there is no plural.

It’s also a third declension, neuter noun, prius, prioris, meaning “earlier event, logically prior proposition.”

And it’s an adjective as well. Both the noun and adjectival forms have plurals.

(As to why the nominative plural is priores, the stem is formed by dropping the ending from the singular, genitive form prioris, so the stem is prior. Then the nominative, plural ending for third declension, neuter nouns is -es, hence priores.)

Of course, none of this is relevant to what the plural is in English.

Something I’ve learned today, then. Can you site an online source for the Latin noun prius? My Lewis & Short gives only the adverbial sense.