Hey. You. Fill in the blank.
Submitted 10 months ago by JohnSaveourSocks@lemmy.world to general@lemmy.world
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f2/WugTest.png/330px-WugTest.png
Comments
JohnSaveourSocks@lemmy.world 10 months ago
EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I sat here, for like 5 minutes, saying wugs out loud trying to figure out the joke before I clicked through to the comments and saw this lol
BunnyKnuckles@startrek.website 10 months ago
You silly goose! The plural or wug is wagon.
MisterChief@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Thank you, I was confused.
I immediately went to “now there are two wug wugs”.
nicetriangle@kbin.social 10 months ago
Wugen
SpoopyKing@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
Many much MOOSEN
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
There are two wug
Because wug are like moose.
Unless it’s weg, like goose and geese.
Also, I’m kinda cheating because I’ve seen this before. The first time I saw it, I said wugs, which is exactly the point of the test.
If you ever get a chance, take a look at the other parts of the test. There’s multiple places where the kind of exceptions I used above would be available, but (and this is part of the point) the age of person the test was meant for wouldn’t have been exposed to those exceptions yet. And those exceptions are exceptions, which even adults don’t always think of when faced with this kind of thing. Like I said, my first thought when I initially saw this back in the day was “wugs”, not any of the exceptions you’d think of given time. And I play word games where that kind of thing matters.
virku@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I like to think that my English is quite good, but this one threw me off. Am I supposed to understand from the name wug that the plural of wug is not wugs?
zaphod@feddit.de 10 months ago
It’s a nonsense word, there’s no right or wrong plural for it, most will say wugs, just like you did and that’s the entire point of this test.
offbyone@feddit.uk 10 months ago
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
That’s one of the interesting things about language. It’s all just sounds that we agree represent ideas.
But, because language use is such an intrinsic part of our brains, the rules around language are picked up much faster than we realize. This test is generally done with very young children that haven’t had much (if any) grammat traint. They just pick you that adding s to the end of a noun means that there are multiple of if. They’ll use that rule even when the noun is nonsense.
But that rule is arbitrary to an extent. We could collectively agree that adding k at the end means plural. It doesn’t even have to be at the end, it could be anywhere in the word.
Some words don’t follow the normal rules. Like mouse, and mice when talking about the animals. Or the exceptions I mentioned earlier.
If we apply those exceptions to a nonsense noun like wug, it is no more or less “right” than adding s. But the test is about showing how language develops, not how a given language functions.
English is an odd language sometimes though. We borrow words from other languages, sometimes adopting the grammar and rules, sometimes not. But English is built on multiple older languages to begin with, so the rules it has can be mind boggling.
Deconceptualist@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Wüge
Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Friends.
rynzcycle@kbin.social 10 months ago
Wuggles.
Done, what do I win?JohnSaveourSocks@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I would love to see how you all handle this one: “This is a dog with QUIRKS on him. He is all covered in QUIRKS. What kind of a dog is he? He is a ________ dog.”
WhatASave@aussie.zone 10 months ago
A Quirk Dog!
zaphod@feddit.de 10 months ago
It’s wug, but you pronounce it like weeg.
grue@lemmy.world 10 months ago
wugii
Tigbitties@kbin.social 10 months ago
Wug wugs
walter_wiggles@lemmy.nz 10 months ago
Wags, there are two wags
Kinten@feddit.nu 10 months ago
Clearly it’s wugi
SamB@lemmy.world 10 months ago
There are two weg.
dipshit@lemmy.world 10 months ago
poots
Wander@yiffit.net 10 months ago
Wugodes
Untitled_Pribor@kbin.social 10 months ago
Wugov
barttier@feddit.de 10 months ago
…of them.
I said the last sentence two times for emphasis.
zecg@lemmy.world 10 months ago
That doubling rate is worrying