Lego have confirmed this.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10839/what-is-th...

https://mobile.twitter.com/lego_group/status/842115345280294...

From the chosen answer:

> Of course everyone is free to comply with these corporate demands, but the Lego Group has no authority over the English language to regulate it in this way. So if you want to feel guilty about using “Legos”, understand that the only thing you are guilty of is not obeying the demands of a Danish corporation, not for violating the rules of English grammar.

*American English grammar.

It's firmly 'Lego' in the UK.

Considering there is English grammar authority either, I guess you can never be violating English grammar rules? You are merely in conflict with some of the English dictionaries out there. So even if the scale is different, it's sort of the same.

Yes, and I find this argument quite tiresome (mainly due to its frequency) on English.SE - Google ngrams are really interesting, but it's not all I'm interested in. If something's a modern 'corruption' (by whoever considers it such) then all an ngram's going to show you is yes (or no) it has (resp. not) been corrupted.

Imagine if English (Language) teachers took the same stance. A+ everyone, if that's how you say it, you're correct, there is no wrong.

(And then is ESL different? Seems like racism is the effective conclusion!)

This reminds me of how Adobe Photoshop branding guidelines [1] explicitly forbid the use of "photoshop" as a verb or common noun, and yet I don't think anyone considers these to be improper English grammar.

1: https://www.adobe.com/legal/permissions/trademarks.html

[Given the nature of this thread, I'm sorry, but I have to do this ;)]

> Lego have [...]

[the company] *has.

It's a plural - groups of people are traditionally plural in English.

Apple have announced a new iPhone. The New York Yankees are playing tonight. The Board were due to meet yesterday. Etc.

In UK English. American and Canadian English treats groups as singular, even when the name itself is a plural. "Apple has", "The United Nations has", etc.

It's not wrong to use British English. People using it don't need to be corrected to use American English.

So why are you trying to make a counter-correction?

I'm not telling them to use a plural.

I'm telling them that people who use a plural aren't doing so out of ignorance and don't need to be corrected as if they're making a mistake.

It's (it! You said it yourself!) not a plural, it's a singular company.

It's perhaps clearer if you add a description of the company:

> Apple, an American company, has announced a new iPhone.

> it! You said it yourself!

'It' refers to the word there. The thing the word refers to is a plural.

> It's not a plural, it's a singular company.

That's just not traditional in English. What is a company except a group of people? That's what the word 'company' literally means.

Most people in English speaking countries outside US influence would say:

> Apple, an American company, have announced a new iPhone.

I strongly disagree, as does the aforementioned style guide, as does Google Ngram Viewer (BrE even): https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=company+have%2...

What about 'only one of the companies [...]', what'll you say next?

A singular company is formed of a plurality of parts, yes, just as a millipede has many legs.

I don't understand - are you claiming it's just more common to use the American grammar in all venues? Yes I'm sure it is. But it doesn't make it wrong to use British English that you need to go out of your way to correct them as if they're making a mistake and don't know any better.

Or are you claiming it has never been commonly accepted British grammar to make company names plural? If you think that then I'm afraid you're just factually mistaken.

Can you please provide something more substantive than just being afraid I'm factually mistaken? I've provided a link to Google Ngram Viewer, a reference to The Economist's Style Guide, and an anecdotal experience of being a native British English speaker to the contrary.

I don't refuse to believe that I'm simply only aware of the Americanism; but I'm not willing to take an internet comment (by itself) as a correction.

If anything when I hear people say blah company 'have' done such and such, I think of that as an American/modern personalisation.

I agree completely with this answer, and I think that's consistent with 'Lego has confirmed' here': https://english.stackexchange.com/a/341284/52014 I'd only add that I consider the 'shorthand for a group of people' strictly colloquial (and oral).

If all you want is some evidence that it is considered normal in British English, then for example Fowler's under 'collective nouns' on page 162 of the current edition which says exactly that:

> In British English it is in order to use either a plural verb or a singular verb after most collective nouns, so long as attendant pronouns are made to follow suit.

And then it follows on with examples from British literature in the wild such as news reports on how 'MI5 were living in the past'.

Or for example this BBC article

https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/l...

> The BBC is / are planning to introduce 35 minute news broadcasts in the spring.

> it is in order to use either

So you object to my correction rather than consider the inverse solely correct?

Fair enough. I have hitherto considered 'the company have announced' incorrect; I'll check that, but I don't like it for my own use.

> So you object to my correction rather than consider the inverse solely correct?

Yes. People aren't mistaken when they use the version that is more unique to British English.

I stand by that principle, (in fact I'd be tempted to say something stronger, heh) I'd just never recognised this as an example of it.

This is a difference between British and North American English. Americans consider a company to be singular; Brits, plural.

I'm British.

(And The Economist's 'Style Guide' 10ed. concurs. (I'm not being selective beyond the extent to which I already am by only having that style guide.) It is of course a global publication, despite 'being' British, but it's entry on 'Americanisms' makes it pretty clear ('sparingly') it prefers a BrE starting point. I can't find anything more explicit on that.)

Alright. Clearly it’s not a consensus view then. Still, every time I’ve heard things like “Google have”, it’s been (ESL, or) British English speakers. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered it in American English.

I don't think corporate marketing departments get to demand changes to the English language. It seems like the much more common usage in the wild is legos, regardless of what corporate and pedants want people to use.

I've never heard anyone say Legos, it sounds nonsensical to my ear. Lego is the system. You've got Lego men, Lego wheels and Lego bricks. If you're referring to a Lego brick as 'a Lego', then fair enough. But who does that?

Every person I've ever interacted with has said "do you want to play legos?" or some variant of it. I've never once been asked "do you want to play with Lego bricks?"

So, in answer to your "who does that?" question my anecdotal response would be "everyone"

Language probably just varies a lot from place to place

You're missing the point of the GP. If Lego is the name of the game then you're not going to say "Do you want to play with Lego bricks?" because you're taking the individual component of the game and then pluralising it rather than taking the game as a whole.

Take Snooker for example. The game components consists of a table and balls, but you don't say "Do you want to play balls?" You say "Do you want to play Snooker?".

Same with Lego. The game is called "Lego" but the parts are called "Lego bricks".

People might informally call it "Legos" in America but that doesn't mean it's technically accurate. Likewise people in Yorkshire, England, say "our dad" instead of "my dad" but that doesn't mean they're literally more than one person. In short, it's quite possible for lots of people to be wrong ;)

> You're missing the point of the GP

I don't think I missed the point. They asked: "who does that?"

And my answer was, essentially, "some people!" In fact, around me, it's everyone I've ever talked with legos about.

> People might informally call it "Legos" in America but that doesn't mean it's technically accurate.

I think it is technically accurate, because I'm a descriptivist.

So, when people in America (or other place) say: "legos" to describe they toys they're playing with that is technically accurate. Because language is how people use it. There is no "formal rule" for what english is. English is however it is used.

> So, when people in America (or other place) say: "legos" to describe they toys they're playing with that is technically accurate. Because language is how people use it. There is no "formal rule" for what english is. English is however it is used.

You're conflating different things there:

  - Colloquially correct
  - Formally correct

English, like most languages, does have formal rules. You claim there is no "formal rule for what English is" but that's 100% incorrect. Yes you're right that common usage does alter languages but not in the way you imply. Colloquial usage doesn't alter formal rules.

"Legos" might be colloquial but it is not formally correct.

A good equivalent here is jigsaw puzzles. You don't call multiple games "jigsaw pieces" like you implied the Lego game might be called "Lego bricks". Colloquially some people call them "jigsaws" but formally they're called "jigsaw puzzles".

Just because there is a colloquial convention it doesn't it's correct.

There are countless examples of colloquial "rules" that are grammatically or formally incorrect. Even just within the UK and USA we have different communities that have their own colloquial standards. Yet there is a national standard for how one writes formal documents.

> Yet there is a national standard for how one writes formal documents.

Citation needed, please. Could you link me to the formally defined national grammar for American English, please? Who is the body that maintains this formal standard? Is it NIST, or ANSI, or an ISO standard?

There is, in fact, no formal English standard that defines what is "correct". I'm not conflating "colloquially correct" with "formally correct". I am fundamentally disagreeing with you that a concept such as "formally correct" exists for language.

I am a descriptivist. You sound like you are a prescriptivist. We may just have to agree to disagree on this point.

> Citation needed, please. Could you link me to the formally defined national grammar for American English, please? Who is the body that maintains this formal standard? Is it NIST, or ANSI, or an ISO standard?

It's not a technical language like C so you're not going to find a technical standard in ANSI but organisations like Websters (and Oxford in the UK) do define standards for formal writing. I guess the confusion here is it's not a "formal standard" but a "standard in formal writing". I apologise for not being clearer on that. Generally the formal version of the language is considered "correct" while variations are "slang". You might argue that is only a de facto standard but it's still one that is upheld.

Some languages go further and do literally have a formal body in charge of maintaining their language, such as Académie Française who dictate the evolution of French https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise

> You sound like you are a prescriptivist

I'm really not. I frequently colour my speech with non-literal imagery and slang. But I also acknowledge that there are still underlying rules to any language. And if I seem like a prescriptivist it's only because I'm dyslexic so have to work harder than most to make my thoughts understandable -- so much so that a frequent phrase I used as a teen was "if the point of languages is to be understood then who gives a shit if I'm grammatically correct when you clearly understood me?"

Suffice to say, human languages aren't something that comes naturally to me. Thus I might be more acutely aware of the rules where you might take them for granted.

I think you are misattributing the rules in this case. What you seem to be missing is that when people say "legos" they are not referring to a game like your example of snooker. Legos refers to "lego bricks".

Thus the probably extremely common sentence used by parents all over America is "Please cleanup your legos".

And that refers to duplo bricks and off brand building block copies as well.

So basically, for it to be technically incorrect, you have to argue that "legos" is an incorrect substitution for "lego bricks". I would argue that it is such a common synonym for "attachable building blocks" or "lego bricks", that it is now technically correct as well as coloquially common.

Just like many dictionaries have now added an additional definition for the word "literally", making sentences like, "I am literally dead right now" both colloquially common and technically correct.

> I think you are misattributing the rules in this case. What you seem to be missing is that when people say "legos" they are not referring to a game like your example of snooker. Legos refers to "lego bricks".

Then "Legos" is still wrong because the components are called "bricks", "pieces" or similar.

> Thus the probably extremely common sentence used by parents all over America is "Please cleanup your legos".

Just because it is common it doesn't mean it is correct. Plenty of people misunderstand computer jargon, it doesn't mean they're correct either.

> And that refers to duplo bricks and off brand building block copies as well.

This is basically an admission that the term is being used incorrectly if people are using it for stuff that literally isn't Lego too. :)

> So basically, for it to be technically incorrect, you have to argue that "legos" is an incorrect substitution for "lego bricks".

I'd already supplied lots of examples of how it's not a suitable substitution.

> it is now technically correct as well as coloquially common.

It isn't technically correct. Colloquially common, sure. But I've given numerous examples of how it's not technically correct. Even Lego themselves don't use the term "Legos" -- which should be evidence enough that it's not technically correct.

> Just like many dictionaries have now added an additional definition for the word "literally", making sentences like, "I am literally dead right now" both colloquially common and technically correct.

This "'literally' is misused by the modern generation" sentiment is actually an inaccurate modern meme. The virtual usage of the term -- used when people want to exaggerate a point -- has been in used since the 1700s. 'A Dictionary of the English Language'[0] was published in 1755 (nearly 200 years before the first edition of esteemed the Oxford Dictionary[1]). The first American English dictionary[2] was another ~50 years after that. Thus the virtual definition of 'literally' is not actually considered slang since it pre-dates modern dictionaries. Ironically its more colloquially incorrect using the virtual term than it is literally incorrect. Thus you'll often find the virtual term used in older texts by highly regarded writers:

> Among the meaning of literally is one which many people find problematic: "in effect, virtually—used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible." Neither this nor any of the other meanings of literally is what we would consider slang. This sense has been in standard use by many esteemed writers since the 18th century.

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally (Is the extended use of literally slang?)

This is all stuff that's really easy to research. All the text is public domain and online for anyone to read. Likewise with the "Legos" slang, you can see on Lego's[3] website how they refer to the product vs the components. Thus none of this requires us to guess at whether common vernacular is formal, because it's all already published online for all to reference. The issue is many conflate colloquial slang with formal writing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_La...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary

[2] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Compendious_Dictionary_of_t...

[3] Which is correct because I'm attributing ownership here

Exactly this. Lego is the construction brand. The individual pieces are bricks et al.

Legos refers to the lego bricks like waters can refer to multiple glasses of water even though water is a mass noun and usually doesn't exist in plural. Same with peoples meaning multiple groups of people.

Sheep is perhaps a better example for comparison with Lego. Unless you know of an example where ‘sheeps’ has legitimate usage.

not really, because sheep IS already plural. there is no singular for sheep. if there was it would have to be shoop. (feet->foot, teeth->tooth, etc...)

But isn't it more kind to respect the wishes of the people who created and named it in the first place?

Yes you've got every right to continue to be ignorant after it's been explained to you... but I mean why aspire to do that?

As I said upthread, this reminded me of Apple’s preference to refer to its products without an article (it’s “iPod”, not “the iPod”). I like Apple products, but I don’t like anthropomorphizing their brands. I sincerely don’t think the actual humans making these products we like care about people using the language constructs they’re familiar with. And I sincerely don’t think branding should have so much power as to invent new language constructs and expect people to adopt them or be considered ignorant.

> as to invent new language constructs

It's not a new language construct - they're just saying it's an adjective.

Adjectives that are branding but aren’t adjectives in any languages I speak are... branding. I don’t owe them any obligation to change that.

I'd be with you if there was any kind of consensus on this.

For instance GIF's creator clarifying the pronounciation of his file format was mostly met with a mild middle finger. Is the Lego company meriting more bending backwards than him ?

It's basically the same treatment that any company wants: "Kleenex tissues", "Google searches", "Band-Aid bandages", "LEGO bricks", etc. This is for trademark reasons, because not vigorously defending the 'proper' use of the term can lead it to becoming genericized and usable by anyone. For an example of this happening in practice, "aspirin" was originally a Bayer trademark that was lost through genericization.

Okay but why should we afford that consideration to any company at all? They’re supposed to provide something of value. They’re not human beings with corporeal needs. Bayer seems to be doing just fine.

> Okay but why should we afford that consideration to any company at all?

Why not afford it to them?

If someone asks you nicely to do something because it's important to them and it costs you nothing why not do it?

They’re not someone. Asking humans to change their behavior because a brand asks to be represented in an unusual way is asking for free marketing.

> NEVER add a possessive “s”, plural “s” or hyphen, e.g. LEGO’s design, more LEGOs to play with, LEGO-bricks.

reference: https://www.lego.com/cdn/cs/legal/assets/blt1a4c9a959ce8e1cb...

This reply is disproportionately mean. Please don't call people ignorant because they disagree with your opinion.

I’m disappointed you’re being downvoted for asking people to be nice to humans. I’ve probably ruffled a few feathers challenging deference to corporations’ wishes too, but you were explicitly asking people not to be mean to other people and that doesn’t deserve to be penalized here or anywhere.

I appreciate that you also see that calling others ignorant during a civilized debate is uncalled for.

Not to mention that it does not align with HN guidelines: "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names." and "Please don't post shallow dismissals."

I expected better etiquette from someone who is said to have been an English teacher.

Only in America.

The UK uses lego as the plural for lego.

If you sheeps keep pluralizing it as "Legos" you might find yourselves sleeping with the fishes.

sheep is already plural, you shoop ;-)

Since this is a post about both a Lego thing and an Apple thing (both of which make products I’m fond of), is this like when Apple insists on omitting articles (“iPod” vs “an iPod” etc) when referencing their products? I’ve always understood Lego to be the brand but also the common reference to Lego bricks, never even knew there was a distinction until today. Like another person downthread, I’ve only ever heard “Legos” used for the plural.

It's just an (North?) American thing - in the UK/Europe Lego is the proper noun company name, and adjectivally describes the brick or bricks.

Nobody says 'a lego' or 'some legos'; but similarly in the US I imagine you'd get a funny look (you'd never heard it before, after all) for saying 'a Lego brick' or 'some Lego bricks'.

(Actually, for anyone actually using Lego(s?), surely the real answer is that you speak in terms of their dimensions: 'a 2x4'; 'some 1x1s'..?!)

Okay? There are a lot of American things I’d like to change. This falls far below my desire to say “maths” and much further below things that are actually impacting people’s lives.

Okay? I was only replying to your own comment on the issue; I'm not forcing you to think about it!

I don't capitalize mac and I regularly use definite and indefinite articles to describe the iPhone.

Sometimes I even call them MacBook Pros.

> MacBook Pros.

MacsBook Pro.

I snorted

I prefer seeing fully lowercase mac over MAC

naturally, mac isn't an acronym, it's just shortened. I would have to ask the GP if they write steve in place of Stephen or cat in place of Catherine. A name is a name; use a cap.

My nick (sneak) is a proper noun and is never capitalized.

MAC is something entirely different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address

The largest lego market,(states) refers to them as legos. See amazon, NPR, ect https://www.google.com/search?q=%22legos%22