Two Big Beef Burritos Supreme

On the American Dialect Society's mailing list, someone posted this story from The Onion:

William Safire Orders Two Whoppers Junior

NEW YORK — Stopping for lunch at a Manhattan Burger King, New York Times ‘On Language’ columnist William Safire ordered two “Whoppers Junior” Thursday. “Most Burger King patrons operate under the fallacious assumption that the plural is ‘Whopper Juniors,’” Safire told a woman standing in line behind him. “This, of course, is a grievous grammatical blunder, akin to saying ‘passerbys’ or, worse yet, the dreaded ‘attorney generals.’” Last week, Safire patronized a midtown Taco Bell, ordering “two Big Beef Burritos Supreme.”

To which one poster, not realizing the satire, replied in seriousness:

But of course the back-to-back sibilants in Burritos Supreme would probably not be heard as pluralizing the noun, so Safire might have been heard as “talking funny,” i.e., not marking the plural after a quantifier (ESL speakers do this all the time).

Heh. (and I'm guessing that ESL means “English as a Second Language” in this case)

QOTD – Stronstrup

“I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone”

— Bjarne Stronstrup (originator of C++ programming language)

Classic Stronstrup :).