"Lego" (no preceding article) is a mass-noun for the stuff. It's not really an amorphous blob, of course, but it's being thought of that way. Like "sand" even though sand is made up of grains. "Sand keeps turning up in my shoes after that trip to the beach." "Lego keeps washing up on the shore after that container ship sank."
I call the individual bits "Lego pieces" or "Lego bricks" or "Lego blocks" or whatever.
Some people call them "Legos", whose singular would be "a Lego" or something of the kind. In that case it would be "Legos keep washing up".
I have never seen "Lego" used as an actual plural count-noun: "There are thousands of Lego in that box". Either "thousands of Lego pieces" or "thousands of Legos".
(I confess that using "Lego" as a count-noun makes my inner pedant twitch. But language is defined by usage, and it may well be that by now it's correct.)
It's likely a trademark issue. A trademark is suppose to be an adjective (a Google search. A Lego brick.)
This is because a trademark identifies a specific source or producer of an item. If a trademark is used as a noun (Kleenexes, Trampolines) it is a step toward generic usage and loss of the trademark.
Hence, the Lego group would want you to talk about Lego bricks and Lego pieces, but everyone else is fine talking about Legos. (Except my autocorrect, which wants it to be Lego's)
Lego has a guide somewhere instructing in the avoidance of "Legos" and any phrasing that makes "Lego" overly awkward in a plural situation. On my phone so hard to find the link right now.
Comments
Usage seems to vary, but for me:
"Lego" (no preceding article) is a mass-noun for the stuff. It's not really an amorphous blob, of course, but it's being thought of that way. Like "sand" even though sand is made up of grains. "Sand keeps turning up in my shoes after that trip to the beach." "Lego keeps washing up on the shore after that container ship sank."
I call the individual bits "Lego pieces" or "Lego bricks" or "Lego blocks" or whatever.
Some people call them "Legos", whose singular would be "a Lego" or something of the kind. In that case it would be "Legos keep washing up".
I have never seen "Lego" used as an actual plural count-noun: "There are thousands of Lego in that box". Either "thousands of Lego pieces" or "thousands of Legos".
(I confess that using "Lego" as a count-noun makes my inner pedant twitch. But language is defined by usage, and it may well be that by now it's correct.)
It's likely a trademark issue. A trademark is suppose to be an adjective (a Google search. A Lego brick.)
This is because a trademark identifies a specific source or producer of an item. If a trademark is used as a noun (Kleenexes, Trampolines) it is a step toward generic usage and loss of the trademark.
Hence, the Lego group would want you to talk about Lego bricks and Lego pieces, but everyone else is fine talking about Legos. (Except my autocorrect, which wants it to be Lego's)
Lego has a guide somewhere instructing in the avoidance of "Legos" and any phrasing that makes "Lego" overly awkward in a plural situation. On my phone so hard to find the link right now.