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#6
Originally Posted by benny1967 View Post
Oh, by the way, a question for the native english speaker:

I was thinking of a text below the maemo.org logo that somehow refers to the GNU project... because I believe the GNU project started it all, is heavily underrated and should be mentioned wherever possible.

My first idea was a German phrase that means "where the Gnu roams", but I want to have it on my mug in English (because then, "roam" has the double meaning that applies to the animal as well as mobile phones abroad).
How would you say such a thing so that sounds English?
"Where the Gnu roams?"
or do you need a plural
"Where the Gnus roam?"
Or is Gnu (the animal) plural, too, and one could say
"Where the Gnu roam?" (no that sounds funny)

Or doesn't it make sense at all this way?
The general consensus of online dictionaries seems to be that gnus is the correct plural, but that gnu can also be used as a collective, so either would be okay. So any of the three you've given here would be technically correct - the first would be a singular Gnu, so would probably be more accurate if talking about the GNU organisation (in which case I'd drop the "the" as well and just have "Where GNU roams"), but for animals I'd probably use the latter (the middle one's just as accurate but doesn't sound quite as right to me).