protected static function _inflectize($rules, $word, $locale)
    {
        if (!$word || !isset($rules[$locale])) {
            return $word;
        }
        $result = $word;
        foreach ($rules[$locale] as $rule => $replacement) {
            $result = preg_replace($rule, $replacement, $word, -1, $count);
            if ($count) {
                return $result;
            }
        }
        return $result;
    }