Avios: Pronunciation
#16
Moderator: British Airways Executive Club, Marriott Bonvoy
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#18
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So Avios is to my mind (as a cunning linguist) what is known as an "unmarked plural", or sometimes a "zero plural". Strictly speaking it looks to me to be a "Pluralia Tantum", so the singular form is deemed not to exist. This is common with some units of measure so entirely consistent with the English language (so we have a gross of paper, and two gross of paper).
Another way to look at is is using the word "corps", a word that always ends with S even when singular. And corps gives us a clever way to distinguish singular and plural, since they are suppose to be pronounced differently. In "a corps of officers" the "ps" is not pronounced, "many corps of officers" the s is rendered with both a "pz" sound at the end.
#19
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I think Avios is already plural. So my question would be, what's the singular form??
#20
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#21
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#23
Moderator: British Airways Executive Club, Marriott Bonvoy
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BTW, isn't it delightfully ironic that the OP is spelled "Pronunciaton" ?
#24
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A linguistic side-effect of globalisation is that corporations need to concoct product names that are useable - or at least not offensive - in a global marketplace Hits are rare, and misses such as the immortal fizzy drink Pschitt are memorable for the wrong reason. Avios falls somewhere in between. You can kind-of see why it looked like genius at the brain storming session but it hasn't taken. It feels too synthetic and the allusion to aviation is too crashingly obvious. The fact that people don't instinctively know how to pronounce it is a bad sign. The fact that a significant proportion of users on this forum still prefer alternatives proves it will never fly (ha ha).
#27
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I'm not 100% sure how long you now have to listen to the announcements, but I suspect that this method still works.
#29
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See, I figured we already knew the plural, and that the singular was a mystery. If I want to keep my points from expiring, so I just have to earn a single... Avio?
#30
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Coming back to Avios, Avvy Oss singular and plural, could the plural be Avii (avvy eye) ??