Siblings

[Brus]

If brethren is the plural of brother, why isn't cistern the plural of sister?

[irishmuse]

Because you spelled it with a "c"" Brus?

[benhall.1]

If brethren is the plural of brother, why isn't cistern the plural of sister?

Because "brethren" is not the plural of "brother". The plural of "brother" is "brothers". Brethren means something subtly different.

[Nanohedron]

If brethren is the plural of brother, why isn't cistern the plural of sister?

Because "brethren" is not the plural of "brother". The plural of "brother" is "brothers". Brethren means something subtly different.

Oooh...I have a bit of a bone to pick with this. Now, it has to be said that you are correctly citing current use. "Brethren" was the plural in Middle English; as a retained achaism its use has shifted to a more particular meaning. That's language for you. But run it backward: What, then, is the singular of "brethren"? Yep. We don't have anything other than "brother". I mean, yeah, you could say, "Member of Such-and-such Brethren", but that's the easy way out.

Because you spelled it with a "c"" Brus?

While searching all this, I found that it does indeed appear that the use of "sistren" has been revived, primarily by feminist writers.

And sure enough, at the bottom of my Google page is an ad to repair my leaky cistern. And so we come full circle.

[benhall.1]

Now, it has to be said that you are correctly citing current use.

You correctly discern that that was my intent.

[benhall.1]

Oh, and I would add that the equivalent for the word "sister" is indeed "sistren"*. As one would expect.




*Look it up if you don't believe me.

[Nanohedron]

Oh, and I would add that the equivalent for the word "sister" is indeed "sistren"*. As one would expect.




*Look it up if you don't believe me.

And did I not already mention this in other words?

[benhall.1]

Oh, and I would add that the equivalent for the word "sister" is indeed "sistren"*. As one would expect.




*Look it up if you don't believe me.

And did I not already mention this in other words?

Oh yes, so you did. Sorry, I fell asleep in the middle of your post.

[Nanohedron]

I understand. When you're - um - venerable, these things happen.

[benhall.1]

Eh? Nurse? NURSE!!!

[MTGuru]

When you're - um - venerable, these things happen.

I'm so sorry to hear that. Oh wait, I thought you said venereal. Never mind.

[s1m0n]

The short answer is that present day english retains brethren but not sistren because the bible talks a lot more about brothers than it does sisters.

Brethren uses the now (largely) archaic ~en plural, also seen in words like oxen, children, chicken*, kine**, e'en***, etc. Where archaic forms are retained in common usage as irregular plurals after a language shift to a different 'regular' system, it's because a) they're a very, very common word, used so often it never starts sounding weird to later ears; or b) the older form has been frozen as part of a well known phrase or text, usually scriptural in nature. Brethren is the latter case.

*originally the plural form.
**plural of 'cow'.
***awkward plural for 'eye' required to make the rhyme scheme work in many scots ballads.

The shift to a different connotative meaning for brethren over brothers is another linguistic principle. Where multiple words (or wordforms) exist for the same thing, people tend to sort them into different 'flavours' of meaning, ultimately ending up with completely different definitions for what had initially been the same word. We're familiar with brethren principally because of the KJB, so it has come to take on a 'religioussy' flavour. The splitting process is farther along for the skirt/shirt/shorts trio. All three garments were originally the same word (meaning 'short') filtered through different dialects. Later speakers of English tidied the confusion up by assigning different meanings to the various forms.

[walrii]

And sure enough, at the bottom of my Google page is an ad to repair my leaky cistern.

Lucky you. You could have leaky sistern.

[walrii]

While we are off the subject: canteloupe and penelope. Why is it 'kan-tə-ˌlōp and not kan-‘te-lə-pē when it's pə-'ne-lə-pē and not ‘pə-nə-ˌlōp?

[Nanohedron]

I want to know why barfly is "bar-fly" and not "barf-ly".