Word of the Day

Did You Know?

Kudos looks like it means “more than one kudo,” but it didn’t begin that way. Kudos is one of a number of Greek-derived English nouns ending in -os; like pathos, ethos, and mythos, kudos is a mass noun. There are no subdivisions in the idea of kudos, and the term is used with some, not a. What separates kudos from pathos and the rest, however, is that it is often interpreted as plural, with its -s getting clipped off and kudo being applied as a singular noun, as in “a kudo to anyone who remembers that kudos is not a plural noun.” It makes some sense really: other nouns for things you receive as praise—such as congratulations, accolades, awards, and honors—are plural. Kudos the mass noun was adopted as British university slang in the early 1800s with its still-current pronunciation of \KOO-dahss\, but by the 1920s kudo was being used as a count noun, with kudos, pronounced as \KOO-dohz\, as its plural. (We now enter this count noun in our dictionaries.) This isn’t the first time English speakers have reinterpreted a mass noun as a plural. In Middle English one could only put “some pease” on a plate the way we put “some butter” on bread; eventually the mass noun pease was understood to be plural, and one pea could be enjoyed all on its own.