[DL] tableau or tableauX ? (from The Handbook)

[Evgeny Zolin]

Hi all

A quote from the "Handbook of Tableau Methods" (M. D'Agostino, Dov Gabbay, R. Hahnle and
J. Posegga, eds., 1999), Section 1.1 "What Is a Tableau":

... It will make the introductions easier if we first deal with a minor nuisance. Suppose
we know what a tableau is - what do we call several of them: 'tableaus' or 'tableaux?'
History and the dictionary are on the side of 'tableaux'. On the other hand, language
evolves and tends to simplify; there is a clear drift toward 'tableaus'. In this chapter
we will use 'tableaus', with the non-judgemental understanding that either is acceptable.
This brings our trivial aside to a cloeaux.

:-)

But, throughout that Handbook, they use (as already suggested in the previous answers):

- "tableau" as an adjective: (see the title of the Handbook)
- "tableau" as a singular noun: a tableau is closed if...
- "tableaux" 898 times (and "tableaus" 92 times) as a plural noun: Tableaux for
Nonmonotonic Logics

And only 6 occurrences of (the wrong) "tableaux method", all in the lists of references.

Best,
Evgeny