A FUN ENGLISH LESSON

Then is coboose multiple cabooses?  Isn't the plural of sheep sheeple?  Now you've got me really confused.  Let's leave the grammar police on FARK where they belong.

It's "caboose" (singular) and "cabooses" (plural).

My good old Webster has caboose as singular and plural as O Gauge Jim stated. After being on this Forum for two years I've noticed that both grammar and spelling are butchered quite often. The main purpose about this Forum is information, not the English/American language although correct grammar, spelling and usage would be nice.  

Cabeese isn't a new word corruption, it's been around since the 60's that I know of.

Rusty

Strike it from the written record!! Caboose it is! 

---Greg

My Webster's New Twentieth Century unabridged dictionary from 1970 and about 10 inches think only shows 'caboose'  (n) a ships galley or a trainman's car.  It does not show cabeese at all.  It also does not show a plural version.  

Maybe the plural version is up to the speaker or the writer!  

Hey, here, on my layout it is my rules, and it is definitely "cabeese" and only cabeese.  I like the sound of the word, and its fun to use, and a surprise to friends.  It takes a split second where they hear the word for the first time, then invariably their eyes light up and they smile!

Okay, so now, the real question ought to be: what do you call a group of cabeese?  A flock of geese, pod of whales, a band of gorillas . . .

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/abou...qs/animals/names.htm

So what is it, ????? of cabeese?

This has been well discussed in a previous thread. HERE

Here in 'murica we typically trash the Queen's English. I would be interested in having Nicole weigh in on this. For the record, my vote stands for Caboosesses.

Gilly

Are we back at school? I don't care how you spell it, we all know what it means!

Rich in NH

What about cabooses? that's the word I've always heard for multiple cabin cars.

Merriam Webster's online dictionary has cabooses as the plural of caboose.

http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/caboose

Do you suppose someone could have a lash-up of cabeese?  lol

I will defer to the Oxford University Press which, I believe, knows one or two things about the Queen's English:

http://www.oxforddictionaries....ican_english/caboose

In one of the examples they use, the plural of caboose is "cabooses".

Sorry guys, where I come from it's "cabin cars".

Brad

Brad- Excellent! It certainly kills the debate over cabeese/caboose/cabooses. Is that a PRR term?

It wasnt too long ago that Google was not a word, now it si a word with multiple meaning. Everybody Goggles these days, google cabeese, what do you get?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cabeese

I like cabeeses...

Andy

A long time ago in a land far away, several tribes determined that war among them was counterproductive. The tribes met on a neutral field to consolidate their operations and trade resources. They first had to come up with a common trade language. Each tribe said "We aren't giving up our language!"...

and that's how English was created.

You have house and houses, but you have mouse and mice?!?

You have sheep and sheep, but you have creep and creeps?!?

You have moose and moose, but you have goose and geese?!?

You have moose and moose, but you have noose and nooses?!?

But then there are some plurals that make perfect sense:

A group of baboons is called a Congress 

Next stop Webster's. Frankly, I've seen them add stupider words, like "yooper".

In Britain, we would call it a brake van, or a guards van. Quite how the name for an on-deck galley hut from a small vessel became the accepted US term is one of the mysteries of history. 

While the correct plural of caboose is cabooses, it would appear that cabeese is the popular term in common use, and will possibly become the accepted plural in the future. (Goose becomes geese, so caboose becomes cabeese.)

In this case, i would suggest that the collective term for a multitude of cabeese should be a caggle. In the same way that a multitude of geese are a gaggle. 

How would the plural of caboose be cabeese?

The plural of moose is not meese? 

Just because the plural of goose is geese, does not mean that any noun with "oose" will change to "eese".  In fact "oose" to "eese" is an exception.

There are other weird plurals for animal nouns like mouse, goose, fish, etc, but the plural of caboose is definitely cabooses, and anyone calling it cabeese is just being humorous and there's no harm in that.

Then we would have to have moose and meese and then a bunch of meese would be a maggle of meese?

I like your thinking here. British are so proper! (I also like mooses, but that's probably not proper?)

A Fun English Lesson.......................... Proper case makes words very easy to read.

Life itself is a school; one never stops learning; at least one would hope so.

Whatever you call the plural of caboose, if you couple several of them together can you say they are "lashed -up"? (The only thing more fun than watching steam come out of an engine's smokestack is seeing it come out of Rich's ears!)

Cabins, crummies and hacks!

Ah, the English language...I feel sorry for folks who immgrate and have do figure out all the nuances.  Beside the confusion of singular vs. plural, how about some of the other great phrases that can stop an ESL dead in their tracks:

Black berries are red when they're green

Your door is ajar

The nose runs, yet the feet smell

The word like

The mutiple uses for the word blue, or for that matter most colors, and 'i before e except after c', unless of course your referring to exceptions like vein, weight, beige...

r0d

Strangely enough, 'Meese' is an acceptable, although no longer used plural for multiple moose. It was common at one time though. 'Mooses' is also falling into disuse, and 'moose' is now the common word for both singular and plural.

Language is indeed a peculiar thing. 

Cabooses is the correct plural, despite what others may feel.  Use whatever you prefer (as most here tend to do anyway, right or wrong), but if you're writing for publication--ours and most others--and if you want to appear reasonable intelligent and informed, please use cabooses. 

By the way:  Standard dictionaries generally provide plural forms for listed nouns (like the word "caboose") when those plurals are formed irregularly, such as nouns ending in o and ey.  The plural for the word caboose not being formed irregularly, you'll not find the plural listed in most dictionaries.

And for my favorite railroad the correct term was 'way car'....the plural of which is (drum roll, please!) way cars. 

How droll is that?  

BTW, here's a hint....Red+silver+yellow.

And to the chap who suggests that spelling is moot, 'we all know what it means!', ...give that man a round of applause and a silver dollar!  After all, we're in 'Twitter-land', now, and all useless letters are thrown overboard.

Of course, then there's the question of PC....Politically Correct, not Penn Central!.  We must not offend.

KD

Fellas and Ladies,

Please!!!!!How about giving up the argument and consider this for a moment, since it is commonly the final car in any combine why not call it a LAST. it seems to make the most sense!

or Conductor's car.

Actually, call it what you will but it was usually last.

Mike Maurice

This is actually a serious discussion?     I had always thought that the term "cabeese" was a tongue-in-cheek, fun way of referring to more than one caboose.  I never thought anyone saying or writing that actually believed it was either a real word or grammatically correct!  It's the way we cool, insouciant hipsters demonstrate our hipness, like calling eBay "Da Bay."  

- Mike

Ah this is just all crazy talk.....

Agreed Mike...

Everyone knows the plural of mouse is meeses as in "I hate meeses to pieces"

I always thought the word cabeese came about as the same kind of joke.

I wonder if the word "cabeese" has the correct number of rivets.

You can call a Caboose what ever you like. When I was a kid we all like the girls with big cabooses, Ha Ha

Exactly!!  Every time I hear "cabeese" I think of this fella...

Mr. Tiddles always hopes that one day Mr. Jinks will win against those miserable  meeses. 

1 - Didn't see it mentioned, but the likely source of caboose is the Dutch cabuise (sp?), meaning little house; actually a very logical usage.

It's not for nothing that: the Dutch settled the Hudson Valley before the

English, and that the Godfather of Northeastern US RR'ing was C. Van der Bilt (Vanderbilt,

if you prefer).

2 - would you really care to note that a young woman has a "nice brake van"?

3 - for some time now, "caboose" has been spelled FRED or ETD.

Thanks for that! It was the first thing that came to mind in this thread, but for the life of me I couldn't remember the cartoon it was from. Totally forgot about Mr. Jinks and Pixie & Dixie!