There seems to be a pattern of humorous plurals in English where by analogy with ox ~ oxen you get -x ~ -xen: boxen, Unixen, VAXen.
Before you call this pattern silly, consider that the fairly normal plural “Unices” is by analogy with Latin plurals in -x = -c|s ~ -c|ēs, where I’ve expanded -x into -cs to make it clear that the Latin singular comprises a noun stem ending in -c- and a (nominative) singular ending -s, which does exist in Latin but is otherwise completely nonexistent in English. (This is extra funny for Unix < Unics < Multics.) Analogies are the order of the day in this language.
alt Hacker News
There seems to be a pattern of humorous plurals in English where by analogy with ox ~ oxen you get -x ~ -xen: boxen, Unixen, VAXen.
Before you call this pattern silly, consider that the fairly normal plural “Unices” is by analogy with Latin plurals in -x = -c|s ~ -c|ēs, where I’ve expanded -x into -cs to make it clear that the Latin singular comprises a noun stem ending in -c- and a (nominative) singular ending -s, which does exist in Latin but is otherwise completely nonexistent in English. (This is extra funny for Unix < Unics < Multics.) Analogies are the order of the day in this language.