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Home Discussion Forum Episodes Pair o' Docs Paradox Minicast

 

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Pair o' Docs Paradox Minicast

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4:42AM
Sep-01-08


Grant Barrett

Brooklyn, New York

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posts 1058
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1

A caller from Imperial Beach, California has a punctuation question: Dr. Tei Fu Chen and his wife, Dr. Oi Lin Chen own and operate a large, multinational herbal food company. In company literature, the two doctors are referred to in several ways. The caller wants to know which is the best choice.

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Download the MP3 here (2.6 MB).

Discuss this episode in the forum.

Which of the following would you pick, and why?

1. The owners, Doctors Chens, are experts in the field.

2. The owners, Doctor Chens, are experts in the field.

3. The owners, Doctors Chen, are experts in the field.

4. The owners, the Doctors Chen, are experts in the field.

See if your answer agrees with the one Martha and Grant decided on.


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8:33PM
Sep-02-08


Joe Strickland

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2

Martha's followup question seems to have more legit answers than were listed.

She said:

freight
weights

How about:

weighty
heighth
heights

That's off the top. There may be more.

7:24AM
Sep-03-08


martha

martha

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posts 802
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3

Hi, Joe — More discussion of that here from folks who also thought of more.

But "heighth"???

6:42PM
Sep-07-08


marianapolack

Member

posts 6
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4

How about The owners, Dr and Dr Chen?

7:32AM
Sep-12-08


Emmett Redd

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5

In graduate school, we had the Doctors Hale in the department and the Doctors Plummer on campus. Beyond the original question, we had to refer to them in conversation. It finally became natural to say "Doctor Missus Hale" or "Doctor Mister Hale". It is starting to get lengthy like German, but was the most efficient we could come up with.

Emmett Redd

2:38PM
Sep-12-08


Tank Hughes

Guest

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6

"Doctors Chen" sounds best to me and I spent all of an afternoon trying to find why, and the only precedents I can find for pluralizing the first of the words is Brothers Grimm and the novel The Brothers Karamazov. A very odd construction but I think that's why it sounds right to my ears.

8:13AM
Sep-13-08


martha

martha

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posts 802
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7

“Doctors Chen” sounds best to me and I spent all of an afternoon trying to find why

Tank, this IS one of those things that can take a whole afternoon to get rid of, sort of like an earworm. I like the way it sounds too, and for the same reason.
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