Mouse

Mouse (pronounced mous (verb form sometimes mouz))

(1) Any of numerous small Old World rodents of the family Muridae, especially of the genus Mus, introduced widely in other parts of the world.

(2) Any similar small animal of various rodent and marsupial families.

(3) As a verb (used with object), moused or mousing (1) to hunt out, as a cat hunts out mice, (2) to move a cursor about a screen using a mouse or (3) to prowl about, as if in search of something.

(4) In nautical use, to secure with a mousing (a turn or lashing of spun yarn or small stuff, or a metallic clasp or fastening, uniting the point and shank of a hook to prevent its unhooking or straightening out).

(5) As mouse-like, when applied to people, a descriptor of timidity.

(6) One of a brace of rodent-based slang terms to differentiate between the small-block (mouse motor) and big-block (rat motor) Chevrolet V8s built mostly in the mid-late twentieth century.

(7) In computing, a hand-held device used to control the cursor movement and select computing functions without using the keyboard.

(8) As a descriptor of hair color, a dull and lifeless blonde.

(9) In boxing, slang for black eye (hematoma).

(10) In early artillery, a match used in firing guns or in blasting.

(11) In the mathematics of set theory, a fragment of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with desirable properties (depending on the context).

(12) A small cushion for a woman's hair (obsolete).

(13) As mouse hair, an expression used to describe the suede-like covering used by some low-volume Italian car manufacturers for some interior fittings.

Pre 900: From the Middle English mous (plural mis) and Old English mūs (small rodent (also “muscle of the arm”)) (plural mȳs), from the Proto-Germanic mus, probably ultimately derived from the primitive Indo-European mus & muhs.  Germanic cognates include the Old Frisian mūs, the Old Saxon mūs, the Low German Muus, the Dutch muis, the Old High German mūs (German Maus), the Old Norse mús, the Swedish mus, the Danish mus, the Norwegian mus, the Icelandic mús & the Faroese mús.  Indo-European cognates include the Ancient Greek μῦς (mûs), the Latin mūs, the Spanish mur, the Armenian մուկ (muk), the Old Church Slavonic myšĭ, the Russian мышь (myšʹ), the Albanian mi, the Persian موش‎ (muš) & the Sanskrit मूष् (mūṣ).

Lindsay Lohan with Mickey Mouse.

The use to describe something (or more commonly someone) as timid or weak dates from the late fourteenth century and the phrase of diametric contrast “an or mouse” emerged in the 1620s.  The meaning "black eye" (or other dis-colored lump on the body) is from 1842 and is part of the jargon of boxing.  The familiar use in computing to describe a "small device moved by the hand over a flat surface to maneuver a cursor or arrow on a display screen" is from 1965, though the word had been applied to many objects with some vague remembrance to the rodent was applied to many objects since 1750 and was especially popular in Admiralty use.  The computer mouse picked up the name because the cord which connected it to the computer (which in the early days of PCs was usually a serial or bus connection) was compared to the creature’s tail; although mice are increasingly wireless and thus have no “tail” the name has stuck, divorced from the original imagery.  The preferred plural is mice (pronounced mahys); in the Old English it was mys and mice is thus an example if i-mutation.  The curious adoption of mouses as the plural for the computer mouse had no etymological or other basis and seems to have come into use to ensure references to the plastic pointing device wouldn’t be confused with rodents though it’s difficult to imagine that would often happen.

Lindsay Lohan in Minnie Mouse mode.

The verb mouse (to hunt or catch mice) developed from the noun in the mid-thirteenth century and was from the earlier mousen while the noun mouse-hole (very small hole where mice go in and out, a hole only big enough to admit a mouse) dates from the early fifteenth century; from later that century, the noun mouser (cat that hunts mice) was an agent noun from the verb.  The adjective mousy (resembling a mouse) dates from 1812 was actually used mostly as a synonym of “mouse-like” to describe the demeanour of the timid although there are instances of use in zoology as an anatomical descriptor; after 1512 it came to describe hair color, now more memorably referred to as dirty blonde”.  The noun mousetrap (trap for catching mice) emerged in the mid-fifteenth century with figurative use noted since the 1570s.  The device however is an ancient design (which, conceptually, probably can’t be improved upon) and in the Old English was musfealle (literally "mouse-fall" after the imagery of the trap falling on the mouse); in the late fourteenth century Middle English it was mouscacche (literally "mouse-catch").

The figurative use of Mickey Mouse, the cartoon character created in 1928 by US animator Walt Disney (1901-1966) is interesting.  As an adjective meaning "small and worthless, petty, inconsequential" it was in use by 1951, presumably a reference to the less than exact accuracy in time-keeping by the popular, cheaply made Mickey Mouse wristwatch.  A similar negative connotation had emerged in 1935 to describe the innocuous but unimaginative dance-band music played as background in cartoon films.  However, by the 1950s, the Californian hot-rod movement had adopted Mickey Mouse as a contronym to describe the best and most desirable after-market equipment.

Small and big-block Chevrolet V8s compared, the small-block (mouse) to the left in each image, the big-block (rat) to the right.

Mouse and rat are informal terms used respectively to refer to the classic small (1955-2003 although still produced as a crate-engine) and big-block Chevrolet V8s (1958-2021 although still produced as a crate-engine).  The small-block was first named although the origin is contested; either it was (1) an allusion to “mighty mouse” a popular cartoon character of the 1950s, the idea being the relatively small engine being able to out-perform many bigger units from other manufacturers or (2) an allusion to the big, heavy Chrysler Hemi V8s (the first generation 331, 354 & 392 cubic inch versions) being known as “the elephant”, the idea based on the widely held belief that elephants are scared of mice (which may actually be true although the reason appears not to be the long repeated myth it’s because the little rodents might climb up their trunk).  The mouse (small-block) and rat (big-block) distinction is simple to understand: the big block is externally larger although, the internal displacement of some mouse motors was greater than some rats.

The plural in Modern English

The tendency by the mid-1980s to differentiate between multiple rodents and multiple Computer-Aided Display Control Devices (as mice were first called) as mice and mouses respectively was curious.  While the onset of mass-market computing in the 1980s made some linguistic differentiation desirable (eg between program for software and programme for all other contexts), there has never been much chance, in any context, of confusing rodents with two or more computer mice.  Hopefully, mouses will go extinct.

One mouse, two mice.

That does beg the question of why multiple rodents are mice and not mouses given that would be the usual practice in English: add an “s”.  Among animals, the mouse is not unique in this variation; there’s also moose, ox and goose, none of which enjoy plurals created by adding an “s” and there’s no apparent consistency for were the model for oxen to be universal, Modern English would enjoy goosen, micen and moosen, an echo of Old English.  In Modern English, mostly the noun plural is made by adding an “s” but there are irregular plurals, many but not all of which are animal names.   

The first group of irregular nouns come from an obsolete strain of Old English and includes ox and oxen.  Old English was a West Germanic language spoken and written between the mid-fifth and late-eleventh centuries in parts of what are now England and southern Scotland; it’s in this the epic poem Beowulf was written.  Although unintelligible to speakers of Modern English, as it evolved, it retained some elements of Old English including the plural nouns oxen, children and brethren although the evolution was organic and not consistent; some other nouns, such as eye, house and hose used to be pluralized in a similar way, but those forms, eyen, housen and hosen are now dialectic or obsolete.  Hosen of course endures in Modern German, as in lederhosen but, there are at least five different ways German nouns can form the plural.

The second group of irregular plurals are mutants, also from Old English roots.  Examples include foot, goose, woman and louse which as plurals became feet, geese, women, and lice, all under the influence of German.  Mutated plurals are formed simply by changing the vowel sound of the singular, in a process called “umlaut”.  An “umlaut” is better known as the two-dot symbol seen above some German vowels, but there’s also a sense in which it’s a concept in technical linguistics.  While quite rare in Modern English, mutated plurals are in common use and include man & men, mouse & mice and tooth & teeth.

Finally, there are nouns where the singular and plural forms are the same, such as deer, fish, moose, sheep, shrimp and swine; these are called zero-plural nouns.  Many are animals, but there are others such as aircraft and species.  Even here, there are deviations such as the convention in science to use fishes to differentiate between one and multiple species of fish which makes sense in a way mouses never did.

The fish vs fishes thing does have history.  There are many references to fish in the Bible, never species, just fish singular or plural but translators rendered the plural as both “fish” and “fishes” even when not necessarily referring to actual fish.  Translators used “fish” in its plural sense when the Greek opsarion appeared, a word simply denoting food eaten with bread, which was often fish but it’s translated also as "fishes", the original spellings often "fysshe" and "fysshes".  Both the original 1611 and the 1789 revision of the King James Version are rendered thus:

John 21:8 And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,) dragging the net with fishes.

John 21:9 As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.

John 21:10 Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.

John 21:11 Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.

None of this offers any revelation of grammatical or theological truth but it does illustrate the murky history of English plurals.  So, in English, there is no consistent rule for noun plural formations.  Unfortunately, the language is what it is and all that can be done is to memorize weird plurals, just as one has to learn irregular verbs.

Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus

The “mountain in labor” is imagery dating from Antiquity (thought to be a Greek proverb) and has since often been used in Western literature.  The idea is of speech in a literary or political context which promises much but delivers little (ie “over promising and under-delivering” or “much ado about little”).  It’s best remembered in the phrase used by the the Roman lyric poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BC) in the influential Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry (19 BC)): Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus (The mountains are in labor but only an absurd mouse will be born).

And don’t start like the old writer of epic cycles:

‘Of Priam’s fate I’ll sing, and the greatest of Wars.’

What could he produce to match his opening promise?

Mountains will labour: what’s born? A ridiculous mouse!