Feb 8, 2015
One kudo, or one kudos?
Visiting AO3 today I noticed that something I had written had gained one more...kudo? kudos? Neither of these sounds right!
I know that the word kudos is borrowed from Greek and generally used in English as a mass noun, so originally you would never speak of 'one kudo(s)' any more than you would say 'I got one praise'.
But that was then. The fact now is that AO3 counts kudos, and as such strongly encourages users to treat it as a count noun. But backforming a singular 'kudo' still sounds a bit off to me. Or is that perfectly acceptable now? Which of these is better:
'My unpopular story gained one more kudo today.'
'My unpopular story gained one more kudos today.''
I'm not really sure myself!