Out For A Constitutional

The world is full of discussions about constitutions. The Tories are changing theirs, the EU wants to have one (but a lot of people don't want it to), and Egypt have been having a referendum on changing theirs to allow for contested Presidential Elections.

I'm interested, for different reasons, in all of these to one extent or another, so I'm taking it as a comment on the quality of reportage on the subjects that the thing which stood out in it all for me this morning was this:

That a Dutch politician being interviewed on the EU question in English used the word referenda as the plural of referendum. She's absolutely right to do so of course, but all I could take in was that I don't think I know a single native English speaker except myself who would do the same.

Posted on May 27, 2005 08:30 AM

What do you think? (Comments must be approved before they will appear.)