"Dance Your Ph.D." Winner Announced

sciencehabit writes "Science Magazine has crowned the winner of its annual 'Dance Your Ph.D.' contest. Scientists from around the globe are invited to submit videos of themselves interpreting their graduate theses in dance form. The results are often hilarious--and highly entertaining--and this year is no exception. This year's winner is Peter Liddicoat, a materials scientist at the University of Sydney in Australia, whose 'Evolution of nanostructural architecture in 7000 series aluminum alloys during strengthening by age-hardening and severe plastic deformation' is interpreted as a performance that employs juggling, clowning, and a big dance number—representing the crystal lattices that he studies with atomic microscopy."

Re:No PhD here.

[Antipater]

In English, you don't have to pull out the fancy Latin grammar if you don't want to. How often do people talk about penises, not penes? Or their Facebook statuses, instead of their Facebook status (preferably with a long mark over the u)?

Plurals of Greek "*is" words

[eric31415927]

The proper plural of thesis is theses, with a long e sound in the second syllable.
Until reading the blurb for this Slashdot article, I have never seen anyone get this wrong.

Some people mispronounce the plural of basis. It is bases, with a long e sound in the second syllable.

What really bugs me are people who mispronounce "processes." Its singular form does not end in "is." It is not a Greek word at all. The proper pronunciation of the plural is with a short e sound in the last syllable. Too many people try to sound educated by making the long e sound in this word. Currently, it backfires and they sound less educated. As English evolves, maybe this incorrect pronunciation will win out; but it would still bug me.