No foreigner learning French fails to remark the use of jeunes gens as the plural of jeune homme. The French, for whom this plural is a part of their linguistic inheritance, usually accept it unquestioningly, but in the Mélanges Antoine Thomas Professor Oscar Bloch of the Lycée Buffon at Paris notes the abnormality of the expression and seeks to explain its origin. The cause of the disappearance of a plural jeunes hommes is, he thinks, to be found in a hesitation to employ, in a combination of the two words where the separate value of each is still in evidence, the linked s. In other combinations where such a linking to hommes occurs, such as les bonshommes, les gentilshommes, we have, says Mr. Bloch, true compound words in which the separate value of the elements has been lost.