Forum: Too Lazy BBS

Ngram for (Sake, Sakes) Singular is much more common in Am-Eng and Br-Eng

From HenHanna@NewsGrouper@user4055@newsgrouper.org.invalid to rec.puzzles,sci.lang,alt.usage.english on Sun Nov 16 19:32:26 2025

From Newsgroup: rec.puzzles

plural is more common in AmE.

Singular is much more common in Am-Eng and Br-Eng

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sake%3Aeng_us%2Csake%3Aeng_gb%2Csakes%3Aeng_us%2Csakes%3Aeng_gb&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=true&corpus=en&smoothing=2

________________________________On 16/11/25 micky wrote:

Some arrogant spell-checker is complaining because I used "for gosh
sakes".

Do you think "sakes" is a valid word?

The version I'm used to is "For goodness' sake" (singular). I even use
the singular in examples like "I'm putting these papers in order, for my children's sake".

I'm aware, though, that the plural is more common in AmE.

--
Peter Moylan peter@pmoylan.org http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW
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