One fish, two fish,
red fish, blue fish, goes
the Dr. Seuss children’s
story. Why isn’t it
two fishes? You
may think, “Ok,
it’s hard to count
fish so we group
them all together.
No problem.”
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
LIFE ON THE FARM.
It’s easy to
understand that farmers
would not worry
about making plurals
when they talk
about
sheep.
After all, they
are almost always in a
group. When you
have one sheep,
you can also
call it a ram
or a ewe, and
make those nouns
plural by adding an –s:
rams and ewes.
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
Let’s look at
some other things
we can make plural.
You’ve got a left
foot
and a right foot.
Put them together and
what have you
got? Two feet.
That doesn’t follow the “add an
–s” rule either.
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
Same with
mouse
and its plural, mice.
What happened to
our neat rule for
making words
plural?
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
THE GERMAN
INFLUENCE.
The answer is in
our history.
English came from German
roots. German
grammar changes the vowel
sound in the middle of the
word to show it is
plural. The plural form of
the German word for
goose,
Gans is
Gänse. The vowel
with two dots
over it is called an
umlaut. So
goose becomes
geese in English.
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
There are
other plurals where the
vowel changes like
in the German pattern.
Man –
men and
woman – women
are examples of different
vowel sounds in
plural words. Sometimes a
consonant changes, as
with words that
end in an f
sound, such as leaf.
The voiceless
sound f
takes on a voiced
quality, or v,
and an s sound
is added to the word. We
have autumn leaves
and sharp knives.
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
Another way
to make plurals in
English is to add the
suffix
–en or en. We see
this in the words brother – brethren; child -
children and ox - oxen.
These are words that
come from Old
English.
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
WORDS OF FOREIGN ORIGIN.
With words
that come from foreign
languages, there are
some patterns that
may help you
remember the plural.
Many technical
words in English came from
Latin. Let’s look at the
plural of some
words from Latin. Words
that end in –us
drop that
ending and add –i
to become plural, as in
fungus – fungi
and cactus – cacti.
Listen to this conversation:
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
—
What is that orange
thing on the tree?
—
It’s a fungus.
There are a lot of
different fungi in this forest.
For words that
end in –um,
the ending changes to
–a, as in the words
datum – data
and medium – media.
These two words
are more common in
their plural forms
than the singular
forms in our digital
life. Listen to
how the words medium
and media
appear in this
conversation:
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
— I heard
you got a job
at the New York
Times.
— Yeah, I’m
glad to be working in
mass media.
— But newspapers
are a dying medium, aren’t
they?
— Hey, I
hope not. I’m writing a
blog for them.
When a word
from Latin ends in
–-ex or
–ix, the plural
ending is –ices.
This results in
index – indices
and matrix – matrices. Here
is another conversation:
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
—
The financial
news is bad. The
Dow Jones index is
down.
—
Don’t worry,
there are other
indices, like employment,
going up.
TRY IT YOURSELF.
Are you
ready to try making
plurals with some
English words?
(1) Use the
Germanic pattern for these
words:
tooth (plural:?) Is your answer
teeth?
wolf (plural:?) Is your answer
wolves?
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
(2) Use the
Latin pattern for these
words:
memorandum (plural:?) Your answer should be
memoranda.
focus (plural:?) Your answer should be
foci.
xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx; xxx: xxx;
There are
many more irregular
plural forms in
English. We’ll look at those
in another episode of
Everyday Grammar. For
now, we leave you
with Frank Sinatra,
singing
Autumn Leaves:
But I
miss you most
of all my darling
When
autumn leaves start to
fall ...
I miss you most of all: cuando más te extraño; start to fall:
empiezan a caer. |