Think You Know the Plural of 'Medium'? Brace Yourself
An LA Times story today reports:
"Two senior Los Angeles Times editors were given new responsibilities Thursday as part of an effort to create a 24-hour newsroom serving multiple mediums. "
Now, back in my day, starry-eyed wannabe wordsmiths were taught that the the plural of "medium" is "media." Yes, we knew, dictionaries grudgingly allowed "mediums" as a plural, but only because the ignoramuses were gaining influence.
But in an LA Times article about LA Times editors, such an egregious mistake seemed improbable. So I went to the LA Times' fall-back dictionary, Webster's New World College Dictionary, which says that "mediums" is preferred to "media."
American Heritage and Dictionary.com prefer "media" but allow "mediums." Merriam-Webster online, like Webster's NW, actually prefers "mediums."
Wow.
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Dale Estey says:
I knew that. It came to me
I knew that. It came to me in a dream.
Huntington W. Sharp says:
Wouldn't that be...
"...ignorami"?
I'm not surprised that "media" has become disfavored. I think for most people the word has come to mean the news-entertainment complex that rules so much of our imaginations. The more general meaning confuses those who envision an inchoate mix of Entertainment Tonight and USA Today as "The Media."
Me, I still think of a group of clairvoyants when I see "mediums."
Huntington Sharp, Red Room
Charles Purdy says:
Not on my watch.
Language is a living, breathing, metamorphosing thing, and that's wonderful. But no way. No. Way.
I can make you groan even more, maybe: I worked for a long time in technology publishing, and I can't tell you how many times I came across "medias" used to refer to multiple media (or "mediums"?) in sentences like your example.
(You hear "medias" sometimes in the world of advertising, too. It's a word that makes me sad.)
Ellen R. Sheeley says:
I would've never guessed.
I would've never guessed.
June Casagrande says:
Hmmm.
I just posted a better-researched addendum to this. Long story short, it vindicates all your comments! (And suggests the LA Times was indeed wrong. I guess they were kinda hasty, like me.)