I teach ESL, and this kinda shit in the English language drives me nuts. It's impossible to explain. Just gotta know it. The worst is when you're asking questions. "What's this?" for single things. "What are these?" for multiples. HTF do you explain that you have to know to ask "What are these?" when you're asking about pants or scissors. They're literally asking what those things are. It's bizarre.
Just blame the French for things like this. Your students will be like "Oh that explains it" and move on to the next nonsensical thing they need to learn.
Every language has it's "you just gotta know" moments. Like German. Not too hard until you start getting into technical reading and speech. Just how many words can you glue together? And why?
From the recent Tom Scott upload I learned a group of ferrets are called "a business". We need more silly names to refer to multiple items. The layered parody of a pair of a pair of scissors is indeed tickling my silly bone.
One time my grandmother gave me two pears. She said, "Here's your two pears". I said, "This is just one pair" and we went back forth a bit before she got it.
Seen many threads of people arguing over this, except for two pairs of pants. And it's just mind boggling how people can't figure out that it's "two pairs".
87 replies
Two pairs of scissors
I see three pairs of a kind, I win.
☝️You, probably
Also a pair of a pair of scissors.
That would just be one pair of scissors while this is clearly two pairs of scissors
scissorses
A lesbian couple.
Scissor me timbers
I've adopted the phrase "lip reading" to replace "scissoring."
A queer of scissors
2 pairs of scissors
A pair of pairs of scissors.
A pair squared of scissors
Two pairs.
A quartet
A square of scissors
Exactly like playing cards
::: spoiler spoiler ::: NSFW
I'm not a meme guy. I've never posted nor stolen a meme. I'm tempted to make this my first.
It's okay, I stole this one
Ummmm.... Is that duck whacking it?
That would require a circular motion.
Cuz the corkscrew penis?
It is an anthropomorphic duck, it has also a human penis
Are you saying the anthropomorphic duck has an anthropomorphic dick?
Scissor me timbers!
On the right is Two Pair, but you should know that it still gets trumped by Three of a Kind.
3 pair or even a flush of scissors is still beaten by a singular rock however.
I remember one time that I got a flush of scissors, and then my dad beat me for clogging the toilet.
Rock > flush of scissors > toilet is the hip new game from Hasbro.
Yeah but if you take a bunch of Uranus and the right jokers it's a reliable option
A pair of pair of scissors
A quartet of scissors.
I teach ESL, and this kinda shit in the English language drives me nuts. It's impossible to explain. Just gotta know it. The worst is when you're asking questions. "What's this?" for single things. "What are these?" for multiples. HTF do you explain that you have to know to ask "What are these?" when you're asking about pants or scissors. They're literally asking what those things are. It's bizarre.
Just blame the French for things like this. Your students will be like "Oh that explains it" and move on to the next nonsensical thing they need to learn.
Every language has it's "you just gotta know" moments. Like German. Not too hard until you start getting into technical reading and speech. Just how many words can you glue together? And why?
What do you mean why?
So we can have games named like this
::: spoiler spoiler PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant :::
It is impossible to intuit, but you just introduce "pair of pants" as the singular article. Thus, two pants are "two pairs of pants."
Which is fine for more advanced students, but for kids whose vocabulary and grammar are already very limited, it confuses things a lot.
Bring a pair of kitchen scissors, and awe them by separating the halves
Why is a pair of scissors separated in halves? Shouldn't a pair of scissors be separated into 2 unit scissor?
EDIT: so you would have 2 half pair of scissors? A pair of half pair of scissors?
Apparently this oddity has a term
But I don’t see anything makings sense of it
From the recent Tom Scott upload I learned a group of ferrets are called "a business". We need more silly names to refer to multiple items. The layered parody of a pair of a pair of scissors is indeed tickling my silly bone.
And a group of velvet worms is called "a cuddle". Idk who comes up with these but I like them.
A group of bankers is known as a 'wunch'...
Pair of scissorses
Scissors^2^
four scissors
Pairs of scissors, obviously.
Which 4, or 17, or 249, or 17843368 etc would also reasonably be called.
It's a troupe of scissors!
One time my grandmother gave me two pears. She said, "Here's your two pears". I said, "This is just one pair" and we went back forth a bit before she got it.
four candles please
Good on you for pushing the issue.
That's clearly four scissors.
Attempted murder
Mind was blown when I was learning about an xray-based microfabrication technique. Where the x-rays are known to scise (to cut) polymer molecules.
It took me several years to realize that scissors are tools that scise things. They are prolific scise-ers.
Scissi
Scisodes.
Scissor Sisters.
Scissor Sisters
Scisters
Pair of pairs of scissors.
It's 2 per, as in:
Give me 2 per Cuz I need two per
If there’s a boy pair of scissors there, and a girl pair of scissors there, then it’s a brace of pairs of scissors.
Obv.
English is very straightforward.
It's like fish
One fish, two fish
Red fish, blue fish
Left shark, right shark.
Multiple fish of Multiple species would be fishes.
Last i checked though scissors don't have a species attribute so I think we're good.
So, if you have a couple, would that be a school of scissors?
I would prefer it called a clip of scissors but sure.
Multi-scissor drifting!
Just a couple about to be scissoring.
1 pant = a pair of pants 2 pant = the noise a dog makes when it's hot outside
Also a pair of scissors.
Quartet of scissors
A square of scissors
A pair of scissori
A scisoring
Those aren't scissors. They're shears.
Scissii duh
Scissorses... those pesky scissorses...
A pair of pair of scissors
Seen many threads of people arguing over this, except for two pairs of pants. And it's just mind boggling how people can't figure out that it's "two pairs".
Get three tweezers and you got a full house!
The correct name for a group of scissors is a circumcision. That is a circumcision of scissors.
You are welcome.