This code does not compile if I write “list of mementos,” but it does compile if I write “list of mementoes.” Both spellings are listed in the dictionary. It was an easy fix once I realized that Inform didn’t like the spelling, but it was confusing at first.
Lab is a room.
A memento is a kind of thing.
A photo is a memento in Lab.
A letter is a memento in Lab.
Every turn:
say a list of mementos in the location.
Lab is a room.
A memento is a kind of thing. The plural of memento is mementos.
A photo is a memento in Lab.
A letter is a memento in Lab.
Every turn:
say a list of mementos in the location.
You can manually declare a plural version of “memento” to make it work! Sometimes it helps with… irregular words.
(This is also nice because it will handle matters with printed plural names and the parser.)
>take mementos
photo: Taken.
letter: Taken.
You can even do this if you want both forms to work:
The plural of memento is mementos.
Understand "mementoes" as the plural of memento.
Inform doesn’t construct more than one plural form of a noun; it maps one word or pattern to exactly one plural form. (That is unless it has any Understand clauses hardcoded in, like the one Zarf gave, which I highly doubt it does but I haven’t checked.) In case anyone is interested, the algorithm that maps from singular to plural forms can be found here:
Both spellings are listed as acceptable in English dictionaries, that is to say. :)
Mm, it would be best to keep both since it would prevent your players from running into issues if they favour mementoes; there’s little cause for adding that frustration to the mix. The appeal of switching the “main” and “understood” versions around (though “mementoes” seems to remain valid either way) is just that of natural language programming: you could use your own preference of “mementos” throughout the code instead of correcting yourself constantly.
Thanks!