What's life like in the U.K.?

[Domski]

Nope, just Lego.

 

[cornflakegirl]

Are you saying the plural should be "Legoes" with an "e"? We also have a bad habit of writing "heros" instead of "heroes", btw.

Aah, hadn't realised that it was a plural. So, are you saying that one brick is a Lego, but if you have two bricks then that's two Legos?

Lego isn't a count noun here. We buy some Lego, play with Lego, and use bricks (or wheels or flat bits or whatever) to refer to individual components.

(Heros is just plain wrong though )

 

[Greg Truby]

I think, were you to consult the company's marketing literature, your usage would be the same as theirs. However we do use it where one piece is a Lego (I stepped on a Lego last night and bruised my %$#^ing heel!) and multiple pieces are "Legos", i.e. "The children left their Legos out all over the floor yet again", not "...left their Lego all over...".

Indeed we tend to use "Lego" and "Legos" as sort of generic terms now referring to both actual Lego proper and knock-off similar interlocking brick systems.

<SUP>edit</SUP> Thinking on it, I can virtually guarantee that were I to tell my children to "go pick up your Lego" instead of "go pick up your Legos", they would pick up one Lego block and put it away and leave the rest. <SUB>/edit</SUB>

 

[Von Pookie]

Greg, it's one of those words where the plural is the same as the singular. Just Lego.

...I have no clue why we say 'Legos,' either. I think it just comes out as being more 'natural' or some such crap.

 

[Domski]

In the UK it's all the same:

I bought a Lego set
It consisted of Lego bricks
I use to come home and play with my Lego
My mum used to shout at me for leaving Lego everywhere
The dog used to pick my toys up and play with them until I told him to Lego (sorry)

On an aside I used to keep all my Lego in it's original packaging, the bigger sets anyway. I had to retrieve it from my mum's house when she was having her loft done out and thought I'd pop it to a local toy fair where it seems I have quite a good collection worth about £2.5-3k. Not bad for a few old bits of plastic.

Dom

 

[TinaP]

At one time the Lego company asked that they be called Lego building blocks and not just Lego or Legos. They didn't want the brand name to become a generic term.

 

[Patience]

Having read the word 'Lego' so many times in this thread, it now seems like an odd word. Almost 29 years on this planet, therefore about 27 years of playing with Lego and not thinking about it, NOW the word sounds odd.

 

[yytsunamiyy]

Having read the word 'Lego' so many times in this thread, it now seems like an odd word. Almost 29 years on this planet, therefore about 27 years of playing with Lego and not thinking about it, NOW the word sounds odd.

Well it would wouldn't it? What with it being an artificial word in Danish being made up of the Danish words for "play well / good" (or so one hears...)

 

[barry houdini]

Surely it's French?

Le go

....of course if it was Spanish it would be

El go

 

[xlHammer]

taken from The Lord of the Rings, by J R R Tolkein;

……Legolas?” said Frodo, “That’s a funny name.”<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
“Yes,” replied Legolas, clearly embarrassed. “My mum wanted a girl, who …. played with Lego. Probably.”