Chiefs of Staff

Sheldon Cooper, a character in The Big Bang Theory, had a recurring mini-show within the show called Fun with Flags wherein he shared facts about flags, often with props. If you have seen the television show, you can perhaps hear the words of Mr. Cooper echoing in your head at present. "Welcome to Fun with Flags." Perhaps I should start a Fun with Words series on this blog that discusses interesting words, parts of speech, and other the other grammatical fascinations on my mind. What was I going to write about again? Oh yes, the "s" in Chiefs of Staff.

One of my favourite facts about plurals is how plurals for some job titles such as Surgeon General and Chief of Staff have the "s" in the first word rather than the last. The plural of "Chief of Staff" is "Chiefs of Staff." I can recall few contexts when I have actually needed to know this information. I think I remember hearing it first on a television show, alhough I am presently drawing a blank on what show it might have been. In any case, I don't use the aforementioned examples often.

Ruben Schade, the author of the Rubenerd blog, recently posted a blog post on "loose versus lose", which ends with the following statement:

English… it makes sense until it doesn’t!

I'll have to remember this for the times as I encounter strange intricacies in the English language.

Muffles in a Sheldon Cooper voice: And join me for next week's edition of Fun with Words.

Whether Fun with Words makes its way into being a regular series on my blog, I am not sure. I am sure, however, that I find writing about words fun. If you have an interesting fact about the English language to share with me, I encourage you to email me! (Or, preferably, blog about it on your own website then send me the link.)

Tagged in words.