Talk:English plurals/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Ship/ships

Hi all, I'm not a native English speaker, and I was searching through the whole article but was unable to find anything about ship(s). Is it '5 ships' or '5 ship' as in 'I have five ship and twenty men' ? Is it archaic? Or still used nowadays, perhaps only in nautical jargon? Someone please explain it and add it to the article body, many thanks! Moris JM (talk) 02:52, 25 December 2009 (UTC)Moris_JM

Pronunciation of es

So, the article states:

Where a noun ends in a sibilant sound—such as s, sh, x, soft ch—the plural is formed by adding es (also pronounced as z with a neutral vowel sound or short i)

• What is a "neutral vowel sound"?
• "dishes" sounds a little like it ends in "fizz", but "witches", "glasses" and "boxes" sound like they end in "ez" sounding like "fez". Not neutral and not a "short i".

--Yath 17:48, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would guess what is meant here by "neutral vowel sound" is schwa, but perhaps it would would be more accurate to take a wider interpretation of neutral as lax. This would encompass schwa, unstressed short e, and unstressed short i, rather than being distinct from the short i sound. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 21:59, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

viri?

what is viri as a singular word

Fake Latin Jeff Worthington 00:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

vir

Snob plurals

'Snob plural' sounds rather biased to me, even if such an esteemed source as Eric Partridge did call them that. Is there a more neutral term for these? Hairy Dude 06:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, but I think some usage like that is extended far beyond the British hunting upper class. To me, "a herd of antelope" sounds completely normal (although "two lion" doesn't). A friend of mine who lived among English-speaking Athabaskan Indians in Alaska says they always use unmarked "bear" for the plural ("two bear"). Angr/talk 08:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I hear "pair" used in this way ("two pair of pants") a lot here in the Philadelphia area. Jeff Worthington 00:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I use a lot of these plurals.Cameron Nedland 00:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)This term seems very accurate given the places one finds such usage choices. In the education system, the British plural of curriculums is commonly employed outside of higher academic circles, while often the Latin curricula is found being used by academic paragons who somehow seem to think they are portraying great intelligence. I have even seen this correct plural form marked down as wrong in favour of the Latin version without reason. This form of snobbery is difficult to document, and I am sorry if it appears defenseless because it is based on personal experience, but I agree fully with the original author, the source and the label. I suggest it is totally neutral, unfortunately is seems some elements of our society are so sensitive, and perhaps rightly so, that this appears to be a non-NPOV. Does one truly need to look down their nose when saying some of these plural forms for the word snob to be applied? Perhaps we should allow the lesser competent strictly to observe in this format? Unsubstantiated opinion based upon experience is truly non-scholastic, but that should not allow some wealthier individual capable of affording an education the right to continue the dictation of our standards for another 1000 years.208.181.15.134 (talk) 18:19, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

"Learned plural" seems like a better and more appropriate term to me, as these are plurals that are learned through education or familiarity with a particular field in which the term is used. However, I see how someone unlearned would deem such pretentious plural-making a ploy of the aristocracy to maintain their dominant distinction, so I accept the term "snob plural" as a humorous term as it artificially elevates me (who considers "cacti", "curricula", and "I snagged two gopher" as usual) to someone higher than my usual social standing would normally be regarded. Dodecagon12 (talk) 19:40, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

And other plurals are unlearned plurals? Perhaps the terms shibboleth or U and non-U English could be used if 'snob plural' is not correct

[Could 'learn-ed' (vs. 'learned') be a 'snob' past tense?]Malichii (talk) 12:38, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the term "snob plural" is politically correct, the term does connote the sociolinguistic point that the speaker uses the word form to enhance his or her social status. Cf. "snob appeal." It is an instance of overcorrection found only in upper crust (or imitation of upper crust) register. I think the term conveys the point in a snappy way. There is nothing obnoxious or derogatory about the way the article explains the concept. In fact, the article concludes that many irregular plural forms are not snob plurals because they do not seek to elevate the speaker's social status (much as the use of "myself" in place of "me" has graduated from being a "snob" overcorrection to being the form of the pronoun many Americans use casually). I think, in context, that the article is fair and impartial despite its use of this colorful term. It would diminish the quality of the article to substitue something more prosaic. 206.194.131.161 (talk) 19:33, 19 January 2010 (UTC)Amateur linguist

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.194.131.161 (talk) 19:29, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is another "snob plural": the result of someone attempting to display how "learned" they are; but they don't quite succeed. It doesn't necessarily detract too much from their "learnedness"; rather, it can be downright funny. An anglophone ex-girlfriend of mine, with almost flawless Italian, in fact, an art historian, formed a plural from an ellipsis, such that it sounded remarkably ridiculous (hence, my remarking on it): "Let's visit San Luigi dei Francesi to see some Caravaggii"! Many other examples, but I won't linger. Whereas "She asked you and I to dinner" might become acceptable in some forms of English--it is used here in the States more often than "... me ..."--or the "She was exhausted by the person whom consistently misused 'fatidious'" blunder--with at least one of the two latter examples being in the "snob" category--I doubt that "paintings by Caravaggio" will be known as "Caravaggii." Or not: I have seen many Titians and Picassos, though haven't read so many Shakespeares lately. This is especially pronounced because the plural is formed correctly in Italian. (If there were more pendantry available, then "Michelangelo Meriris da Caravaggio" would also require a larger dose of something akin to bahuvrihis compound done "differently.") (Another OT side remark, the two-syllable "learned" is a tongue-in-check "snob adjective," perhaps?). I am unlikely to attempt to edit the page (I'm new here), but just thought I'd offer this example. Blue billagob (talk) 22:14, 13 February 2010 (UTC)blue billagob

children

child children (with the original stem extension -r-)

I hypothesise that child belongs to the class of those W Germanic words which originally had a plural in -er (English being a WG language). See German Blatt : Blätter, Rind : Rinder and Kind : Kinder (Kind means 'child'). Another common plural morpheme was -en, as still present in English in the word ox : oxen. In Dutch (also WG), this -en became the most universal plural mark, (almost) like -s did in English. At one point the Dutch started to add their now 'regular' -en even to words which until then had preserved their plural in -er, so that the plural of kind became kind+er+en. I'm telling this whole story because kinderen is strikingly similar to English children. (I am however consciously ignoring the fact that child has an 'l' in it where the other languages have an 'n', hoping it doesn't undermine my fine little theory.) 217.251.115.53 07:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much about its origins, but some dialects do use childer as a plural form of child. --Kjoonlee 23:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

That's the older form, indeed. As for the IP's theory, I recommend looking for specialist literature. Kind and child are not the same word, etymologically. But it is certainly correct that the genesis of Dutch kinderen (Middle Dutch kinder) is quite parallel to children from childer.

As for the ending -er, it was originally used with a limited number of neuter nouns in West Germanic whose stem originally ended in -z, from older -s. For example, the word for lamb was originally *lambaz, and its plural was something like *lambezō. Germanic *z eventually changed to r in every West and North Germanic language, resulting in Old English lombru (and other dialectal forms) and Old High German lembir (which became Lämmer in Modern High German, quite regularly), and the -er ending later spread to words that didn't even have it originally in German and Dutch. For example, the plural of Old High German wort was simply wort, but in Modern German, the plurals Worte and Wörter were formed. Same with land, which now forms the plural Länder and an older plural Lande which is still present for example in Niederlande, or in the archaic set phrase sie zogen durch die Lande, but originally it was just land, as in Nederland or Deutschland, which originally means die deutschen Länder.

Interestingly, in Latin, stems ending in -s have also changed their s to r between vowels, so that instead of singular *genos, plural *genesa Classical Latin has genus, genera. This is just fortuitous but a handy parallel. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Maori plurals

This article is meant to be about mainstream international English, not about localised usages. Dialects such as Cockney, Geordie and New York English can be discussed in the right place - their own articles. The same applies to New Zealand usages. The space taken up by the digression into Maori grammar was out of proportion and over-heavy for this article - more than the space given to French, Hebrew, Japanese or Inuktitut. I have heard of bureaux, chateaux, seraphim, samurai, kimonos, futons and Inuit, but I have never come across any of the Maori words mentioned (except kiwi). Is the average English speaker expected to? Also, the article digressed rather alarmingly into politics and ethnic matters.

I don't disagree with a brief mention of Maori, properly linked, but we have to keep it in proportion within the whole article. The Inuktitut section needs repositioning anyway, whatever the other issues are. Can we come to some consensus on this?

EM

If an english speaker from New Zealand says these are common words, then I think they should stay. The section doesn't really take up that much space, anyway. I'd be fine with adding more examples to other languages, instead, since they are slim. --71.169.130.63 16:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I vote to keep it. The section seems pretty well proportionned in its current state with regard to the sections on plurals from other languages. All pretty common words in NZ English as well: kowhai = a kind of tree / colour yellow, marae = meeting house, tui = a kind of native bird and waka = canoe / car. 203.97.173.115 12:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there a page about collective plurals?

I was looking for a page mentioning the difference between UK and US pluralisation of collective nouns.

For instance, do you say "U2 are playing a concert tonight" or "U2 is playing a concert tonight"?

Is there a page on Wikipedia about that phenomenon? I don't see anything in the Manual_of_Style about it either.

See American and British English differences#Singular and plural for nouns Angr (talk • contribs) 07:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that. But there's no preference in the Manual_of_Style? Anything goes?

The Manual of Style's rules for British vs. American usage are basically to use the form of English prevalent in the country being discussed in the article (British English in articles about Britain or Britons, American English in articles about America or Americans, Australian English in articles about Australia or Australians, etc.). See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling). The main exception is with quotation marks: here, the MoS simply splits the difference between American and British usage and does so for all articles: use "double quotation marks" for quotes, reserving 'single quotation marks' for quotes within quotes (American usage), but use logical placement of periods/full stops and commas (i.e. place them outside the quotation marks if they're not part of the original quote) (British usage). I don't think the issue of "U2 is" vs. "U2 are" is explicitly addressed in the MoS, but I think it can be inferred from the spelling guidelines. Angr (talk • contribs) 05:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again. hostile17 00:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Can someone include the correct usage of the plural of machinery (not machine), furniture, etc - a lot of people in India make mistakes with these words. Thank-you for the entry on fish. Seasons greetings. Tgkprog (talk) 10:51, 21 December 2008 (UTC) Tushar Kapila

Plurals of nouns ending in -o

Perhaps the entry on such plurals needs revising. After some research, I find that only TOMATO, POTATO, HERO, ECHO and NEGRO always take -es in the plural. Some words may or may not take -es (MANGO, MOSQUITO, e.g.) but it would appear that contrary to the entry most nouns ending in -o take -s only. I seem to remember from university that only words which entered the language before a certain time take the, thus old, -es form. Crocutaza 17:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

• As of today, this article reads that "hero" can make its plural in two ways: "heroes" and "heros'. That is wrong. I consulted 3 different dictionaries and none of them had "heros" as a possible plural form for this word. So, I will change that in two weeks unless someone quotes a reliable source.

George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 22:00, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

"Heros" is actually an old singular form, and "hero" is short for "heroe". AFAICT, the plural has been universally "heroes" for a couple centuries. — kwami (talk) 22:54, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Defective Nouns

Good points but I think that tiding and credential do exist in the singular. "I received a tiding of good news." "His most important credential is his PhD." The Oxford_English_Dictionary also lists each of this words in the singular but adds that they appear "(usually in pl.)". I agree that this is their most common form but think they ought not be listted as forms that only exist in the plural. This, clearly, is not a point that's important enough to fight over. I'm just putting in here FYI in case the author would like to modify this. Interlingua ^talk 13:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

fish

The article states that "fishes" is the plural when different species are referred to, and "fish" for a collection of the animals. I was going to ask about the phrase "swim with the fishes", but this would seem to obey the rule. Can a reference be given for this rule? My understanding (although I'm willing to be corrected if wrong) was that "fishes" can be used in both senses.

dictionary.com says, of "fishes", "especially referring to two or more kinds or species" (my emphasis). On the same page, the American Heritage Dictionary makes no distinction between the use of the two plurals. — Paul G 09:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

There are fish that do have an s to form the plural. For example, shark - sharks. However it does seem that rather a large number of fish species fall into the no s on a plural. Compound nouns, such as goldfish follow the rule for fish. Then there are types such as guppy that as a plural is guppies. Here they y -> ies obviously dominates.

"Greek origin" words

The entry states: "Final us in nouns of Greek origin "properly" add -es. These words are also heard with the Latin -i instead, which is sometimes considered "over-correct"." The words listed here, sadly, are all Latin words. They may have came to Latin via Greek, but they are still in English from Latin, not Greek. Furthermore, the use of "cactuses" is a modern contrivance, the proper form IS "cacti" per my Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (this fits all the other words as well). I am making the change and enlosing a citation.Squad51 18:18, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I also removed the "octopodes" plural, and related comment at the bottom. This is an urban legend (I've seen it mentioned in at least one book, and will cite it when I find it).Squad51 18:32, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not very sure about this urban legend claim. Octopi is rather dodgy since the word was not only of Greek origin but, when used in Latin, third declension, not second. I suppose it's common enough in English to be at least borderline standard though. Octopodes works in both Latin and Greek, but is so uncommon in English that I think Octopuses is the form to recommend. garik 15:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Re the plurals of octopus, Chamber's Dictionary prefers "octopuses". It also lists "octopodes" but describes that as archaic, and flat-out states that "octopi is wrong". However, the -pus ending in platypus has the same origins as for octopus, so surely the plural of platypus would be "platypuses", not "platypi". As for the reference to "cactus" in Merriam-Webster's, I checked that dictionary online. It lists both "cacti" and "cactuses". It apparently prefers the former (by placing it first) but makes no statement about that being the "proper" form (to the exclusion of any other form), nor any statement about "cactuses" being a "modern contrivance". (Chamber's also prefers "cacti" but allows "cactuses".) I think the best advice is that once a word is fully adopted into English, it should be treated as an English word. After all, English has absorbed 10s of thousands of words from other languages (it is not called "the great sponge" for nothing!). Is every borrowed, stolen and smuggled word to be inflected in the manner of its original (or previous) language? What a mess that would be! AlistairLW 05:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. There's no reason why the Greek or Latin plural should be more "correct" than an English one. garik 10:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of "podes", somewhere in this article, although I don't know where, we might want to mention that antipodes is a plural Greek word derived from opposite feet. It had no singular in the original Greek, so the English singular antipode is a backformation from antipodes. Peterwshor (talk) 16:39, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

General American

The article states:

   Note that phonetic transcriptions provided in this article are for General American.

Given that this is an article about the English language, should we not use Received Pronunciation? Paul Roberts 10:48, 28th November 2006

Can't see any particular reason to do so. The differences in pronunciation are covered elsewhere. And as a speaker of British English who does not hail from the small corner of England where something that approximates to Received Pronunciation is spoken, I find RP just as foreign and "odd" as American! Snalwibma 11:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Plural conversion software

There is an implementation of converting nouns to their plural form in Emacs Lisp. It's probably not entirely correct as a reference, but may have examples of nouns that aren't taken up in the Wikipedia article. It's free software, so people are free to learn what they may from it and see how it can help with the article. This is assuming individuals can already or are willing to "live dangerously" and read source code.

• http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/emacs-en/plural.el

--71.169.130.63 19:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

British Isles

This may be a good place to ask whether BI is a plural or singular noun and how should it be used in say "The British Isles is/are a group of islands"? Opinions with citations would be welcome :) Abtract 11:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I (an American) would say "The British Isles are a group of islands." Using a singular verb after a plural noun usually sounds wrong to my ear, whether or not that plural noun is part of a compound word that could conceivably describe a single entity. One could argue that "are" still disagrees with "group", but that doesn't bother me so much for some reason. On the other hand, I would say "The Hawaiian archipelago is a group of islands," because "archipelago" is a singular noun. I'm afraid I don't have any citations other than of Wikipedia itself: American and British English differences#Singular and plural for nouns —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Furrykef (talk • contribs) 19:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC).

I just realized that even then there are exceptions. For instance, I would say "The United States is a country", not "The United States are a country". I guess the reason why is that I consider "the United States" a single entity. Language is just weird, I guess... - furrykef (Talk at me) 03:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Not weird, just subtle! You say "the United States is" when you are referring to the single entity often called the USA, but if you were referring to the 50 states as individual entities you might say "the states do not all have the same laws", or maybe something like "the 'United' States are not all in agreement..." The British Isles behaves the same way: "The British Isles is a collection of islands shared by a number of nations"; "The British Isles are surrounded by the stormy waters of the North Atlantic and the North Sea." Snalwibma 10:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Does one say "kinds of bats" or "kinds of bat"?

Funny enough, this article itself uses both constructions: in one place it says "kinds of living things", and in another, "forms of plural". My understanding was that the second noun must agree in number with the first. I would say "The flying fox is a kind of bat", but "There are many kinds of bats." Very often I see the singular always used for the second noun, and I'm wondering if either form is an error, or if it's a regional difference (e.g., different between American and British English), or if these forms are just interchangeable. Whatever the answer is, perhaps it should be discussed in the article? I don't think it is currently. - furrykef (Talk at me) 19:10, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• I think (my POV) that "kinds of bat" is more correct. It's nothing to do with the two nouns agreeing in number - no more than in the case of "sacks of wool". "Kind of bat" is a noun phrase (a kind of compound noun, even), with "of bat" performing an adjectival function, and you would therefore pluralise by adding an S to the noun part only - as in "attorneys general" or "passersby". Maybe, in fact, a mention of this problem could be added to the "compund nouns" section of the article. I say "more correct", but I'm not inclined to be dogmatic about it, and I think it comes down to what sounds best in a given context. Based on many years of editing texts written by American and British authors (but with no real hard evidence), I'd say that "kinds of bats" is more American usage, and "kinds of bat" more British. Snalwibma 10:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

-y in proper names

> Germany Germanys (as in The two Germanys were unified in 1990)

The use of "two Germanies" appears to be more frequent than "two Germanys" (I don't think it can be called wrong if it's even used as a book title by renowned historians such as Mary Fulbrook, The Two Germanies, Henry Ashby Turner, The two Germanies since 1945, Peter Edgington, The politics of the two Germanies) as is "little Germanies" in contrast to "little Germanys", and it's almost always "two Sicilies" rathern than "two Sicilys". There's certainly style guides promoting the spelling as championed here, but it's obviously not commonly accepted. --128.176.234.236 13:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it's based on the principle that you don't change -y to -ie- in proper nouns (two Jennys, not two Jennies). It is therefore arguably more consistent to have Germanys rather than Germanies, but I agree that common usage is generally to be preferred to prescriptivism as a guide. garik 13:55, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Courts Martial

Are there other plurals like this?

I believe so. To find out for sure, check out this excellent article: English plural. You'll be glad you did.—DCGeist 09:18, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

plurals of noun phrases

The section under "Plurals of compound nouns" discussing plurals of noun phrases is severely confused. The reason you say "men about town" and "women of the street", but "jack-in-the-boxes" and "ham on ryes" has nothing to do with whether their heads form regular or irregular plurals. It has to do with whether the phrase is perceived as a noun with modifiers, or just a multi-word noun. A "man about town" is a man, so its plural is "men about town", and likewise with "women of the street". But a "jack-in-the-box" is not a "jack", and a "ham on rye" is not a ham, so they become "jack-in-the-boxes" and "ham on ryes". (As compared to "jacks of diamonds" and "hams of Spain".) The claim that "men-of-war" is the correct plural of "man-of-war" is absurd, as a quick trip to google will show (871 hits for "portuguese men-of-war", vs 24,200 for "portuguese man-of-wars"). Likewise, it is not "generally regarded as acceptable to pluralize either the first major term or the last" in terms like "jack-in-the-box". Google turns up 43,600 "jack-in-the-boxes", but only 620 "jacks-in-the-box". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.180.28.94 (talk) 01:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

I agree—change it. Ideally, however, we need better sources than google. garik 17:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

billiard

Is there any evidence for the existence of this term as a purported numeral? — Paul G 16:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The OED syas nothing about it. -- Dominus 18:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Continental Europeans use it. See fr:Échelles longue et courte. The British use thousand billion instead of billiard. - TAKASUGI Shinji 01:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The article is about English plurals, and the question is whether there is such a word in English. -- Dominus 13:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I know. I mean billiard is used as a number only in French, German, etc. Americans don't use -illiard. - TAKASUGI Shinji 23:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Milliard is archaic for a thousand million, what I used to call an American billion and now everyone calls a billion. I assume billiard existed too, according to the wiki article (Names_of_large_numbers meaning a thousand million million. Cyta 09:09, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

baths

The article says it's pronounced with a 'voiced fricative' (th as in the, rather than th as in think) but I certainly don't say it that way (I speak British English and pronounce the a in bath short as in cat, not baRth as in father). Could we put this as a pronunciation that varies? Cyta 09:12, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and have changed it. garik 10:03, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Aegis

What would the plural be for the word Aegis? Aeges? Aegises? Would it differ based on context, as with "fish"? Nahka 15:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Aegises or aegides, the latter being the etymologically consistent one. The only contextual difference is that aegides will probably be perceived to be more academic and/or formal, but since aegis is a pretty formal word anyway, I imagine that either plural is suitable in most contexts. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 13:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Plaural

the usage "plaural" is common and correct on the American East Coast.

It may well be, but we need a source for this. Perhaps more importantly, is "plaural" meant to represent the pronunciation? On first sight, I assumed this was about spelling, but that seems unlikely. And if it is a pronunciation issue, can we have it in IPA please? Other questions also raise themselves: who determines that this is "correct"? Do we mean standard usage? Most importantly, why does this matter? This article isn't about how the word plural is pronounced; it varies in other ways in other places too. garik 19:07, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the more I think about this, the less convinced I am that it has any business remaining in the article. Deleted. garik 19:09, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Error becoming acceptable

The most common error that I see regarding the use or misuse of the plural noun is the use of the word "emails." Email, meaning electronic mail, is both singular and plural. Someone may receive one piece of mail (email) or many pieces of mail (email). Since it would be incorrect to say, "I received lots of "mails", it is just as incorrect to say, "I received lots of "emails."

The problem I see with this is that the use of "emails" has spawned a growing acceptance of the misuse of plural nouns in general. It is amazing to see in both the written and spoken word, how educated people increasingly misuse the plural noun.

For example; take some time, on any given day, and listen to the dribble that comes out of the mouths of news reporters. It is atrocious what you will hear when you are paying attention.

I wonder where it will end?

Robert Brandon, Fl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.35.152.98 (talk) 15:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe you are making a fair comparison here. I believe that in common usage, "email" is taken as a shortened form of "email message" (or perhaps "piece of email") and as such it is entirely appropriate to pluralize it with an "s" when referring to several electronic messages. This is similar to how "agenda" has become a common shortening for "list of agenda" (see the article) and we refer to muliple "agendas" even though "agenda" is already the plural of "agendum." Unless you do not accept the usage, "I received an email," you cannot compare "email" directly to "mail" because there is no similar common usage of "mail" as a singular message (i.e. a shortening of "piece of mail"), such as "I received a mail today." To sum up, I think it is reasonable to say both "I received a piece of mail (email)" and "I received several pieces of mail (email)," but also "I received an email" and "I received several emails" if you accept the usage of "email" as a shortening of "email message" or "piece of email." Blazotron (talk) 19:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I recognize this conversation was 3 years ago now, but I completely agree with Blazotron for all the reasons he stated.§ Music Sorter § (talk) 04:19, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Ignoramus is already plural

I am considering adding ignoramus to the list of words better known in the plural. Ignoramus is from latin, ignoro ignorare, meaning "to be ignorant of" thus ignoramus means "we are ignorant of" which is first person plural. The first person singular is "ignoro" however you dont say "you are an I am ignorant of" the second person plural, "you are ignorant of", is "ignoras" however this doesn't agree with the first person perspective. should I list "ignoro" or "ignoras" as the original singular or or does this just not apply. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.240.35.153 (talk) 00:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

This is not a Latin dictionary, so it's quite irrelevant what grammatical form a word used in English originally had in Latin. Any English dictionary will simply state "ignoramus noun (pl. ignoramuses)". --Espoo (talk) 22:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Fractional Number Usage

What is the proper usage in fractional situations. ex: 'I have 1.5 pounds of meat'. If someone were 1,200 miles away it doesn't seem proper usage to say 'they are thousands of miles away'. This is addressed in the article under the plurals of numbers but it isn't clear if the number used as a noun should be at least 2 complete units of that number. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.132.45 (talk) 18:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The article does not yet talk about this, and it definitely needs to because even native English speakers let themselves be confused by "logic" and many science and math teachers (and many websites) that do not understand enough about language and linguistics into believing that what they and almost everybody else says ("one point five degrees" and "zero point five degrees") is wrong when it is in fact correct. I have so far only found these authorities [1] [2] but no mention in reference works yet.--Espoo (talk) 16:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

"Data" in scientific usage

I reworded the comments about there being a US/UK divide in usage of "data" as singular in scientific writing, because there is no real divide. In information sciences (computer science, etc.) "data" is often treated like a singular mass entity, such as "information," but in most other fields in both the US and UK, "data" is still treated as plural, as in "the data are." I frequently read and journals from both English and American publishers, and there is little difference in practice. There is some debate in both places about accepting the common usage and treating data as singular, but this has not been adopted in most serious journals. See http://www.eisu2.bham.ac.uk/johnstf/revis006.htm for more. Note that I did not references this in the article because Nature is actually published by McMillan, originally a British company, now owned by a German company, even though it is not thought about as a British authority in the scientific world, but rather just a sceintific authority.Blazotron (talk) 19:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The article already had plenty of evidence/sources for the British plural usage preference, and it now has additional ones for the US singular usage preference. Please do not remove valid, reputable sources like the American Heritage Dictionary, which bases its entries on scientific analysis of actual usage, and please do not replace this sort of scientifically valid source with linguistic musings by individual scientists, who are in fact amateurs in this matter despite their or others' claims that they're authorities. Modern dictionaries are based on linguistic data collected according to scientific methods, but many scientists in other fields still think that their regional or personal preferences and prescriptive rules are authoritative and know very little about the science of linguistics. The link http://www.eisu2.bham.ac.uk/johnstf/revis006.htm is already in the article specifically as proof for UK plural preference since it references only UK journals in a surprisingly provincial way in this global age. --Espoo (talk) 22:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

"Opera" plural for "opus"?

Oxford English Dictionary has two distinct entries. Any sources that opera (the dramatic musical work) is the same as opera (plural for opus, written work?) --Farzaneh (talk) 16:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Certainly in origin; the list includes quite a few words whose foreign-origin singular are not used. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/opera

Umlaut or Ablaut

It seems to me that the section on "umlaut" plurals ought to be titled ablaut plurals. The articles I find about umlaut talk about i-mutation other vowel-harmony-like topics; the article on ablaut talks about vowel changes to reflect grammatical information. Vishahu (talk) 14:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Plurals like feet originated as umlauts (i-mutation), but since that's no longer an active phonological process in English they're now ablaut -- a morphological process to reflect grammatical information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.49.73.8 (talk) 16:28, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

fish/fishes

I don't know if I can locate a source, but I had always heard that fish is used for multiples of the same type and fishes for many individuals of several species. To clarify: 2 carp would be 2 fish; while a carp, a bass and a tuna would be 3 fishes. Is anyone else aware of this distinction or am I imagining things? Khajidha (talk) 17:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind, this is referenced in another section of the article. Seems odd that fish is mentioned in two places and the two discussions do not completely agree. Khajidha (talk) 17:38, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

roofs/rooves

Why is rooves considered archaic when it is in current modern usage (at least in the UK), in fact I haven't ever heard of someone saying roofs. I agree that the spelling of the word is often spelled roofs but is still pronounced rooves. DanielR235 (talk) 11:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I have only heard roofs in New England and other parts of the states. Everywhere else it is rooves--174.94.106.159 (talk) 13:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Technical Terms

To add to the Data item above, there are several other technical oddities. Code in the sense of secret or software are handled differently. "Please provide me the source code from those projects," vs. "tell me the secret codes for the bomb." I assume the difference is the assumption of software code already being a collection. Another example is [[[SwitchGear]]] which is always used without the "s." Switchgear refers to a collection of a special type of switches and gear to stuff/kit/equipment, not cogs/gears. MountainLogic (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:07, 10 July 2009 (UTC).

Hippopotamus

Someone suggested to me that in the same vein as 'octopodes' being the theoretically correct plural of 'octopus', so 'hippoipotamus' or 'hippoipotamu' would be the correct plural of 'hippopotamus', depending on whether the group of river-horses in question lived in the same river or different rivers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.125.57.57 (talk) 12:20, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Hippopotamus is a Greek compounbd word. The case and number markers would go on the end(hippopotamoi, which would come out in English as hippopotami). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.94.106.159 (talk) 13:46, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Nouns with identical singular and plural

What does this mean? "some linguists regard these as regular plurals" regular plurals as defined above end in "s", so, -- without any other context it doesn't make sense.

French silent -x not silent in English

From the section Irregular plurals from other languages:

• Some nouns of French origin add a silent -x:

beau	beaux
bureau	bureaus or bureaux
château	châteaux
tableau	tableaux

The -x may be silent in French, but it's pronounced in English, at least where I live in the US. It is also common to form the plurals of all of those words as if they were English, with an -s instead of an -x (not only bureaus, but beaus, chateaus, and tableaus), but either way, the plural ending is pronounced, as /z/.

Is pronouncing the -x as if it were an -s, i. e., as /z/, a regional variation, common only in the US, or is it a mistake in this article? Do native English speakers anywhere pronounce beaux exactly like beau, tableaux exactly like tableau, etc., when speaking English?--Jim10701 (talk) 18:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, in British English, the x may be either silent or pronounced /z/ (Collins Dictionary). Amend the article to say that it is sometimes pronounced, but not that it's always pronounced. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 18:37, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The Longman Pronunciation Dictionary gives /z/ as the only pronunciation for all these plurals in American English. In British English, it gives zero (i.e. plural pronounced same as singular) as an alternative for the first two; not for the latter two. Grover cleveland (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Whereas the Collins Dictionary gives both alternatives for beau, chateau, tableau but /z/ only for bureau! But we're not here to dissect the minute differences of opinion between various dictionaries - the main point is clear: in British English, the plural -x is sometimes pronounced, sometimes not. I will amend the article to suit. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 10:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

There might be some logic behind bureaux differing in pronunciation from the other three words: Unlike them (and unlike in French), bureaux does not have the emphasis on the final syllable. SP1R1TM4N (talk) 21:43, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

The '-x' is actually pronounced '-s' in French when it is followed by another vowel. In French, final consonants are only mute when followed by other consonants... so:

Beaux chateaux /bo shato/

BUT

Beaux arts /boz ar/

In fact, the French -x is just a spelling convention that stems from an abbrevation for '-us' (so Old French has 'beu' > 'beus', written 'bex'. The 'u' was later added back analogically but the 'x' was unchanged, giving 'beux', with the 'a' added in afterwards to distinguish from the emerging diphthong 'eu') — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.94.106.159 (talk) 13:50, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Fries, spies, cries, flies, tries, plies

The -ies is not pronounced /iz/ is these cases. My ESL students would like a rule on how to pronounce these. I said to just follow the original word. If that's right, maybe make a note in this article that in words ending in y preceded by a consonant where the y is pronounced /aɪ/ then it is /aɪz/.94.222.188.102 (talk) 18:43, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

"Snob" plurals

Kept the ref'd parag and removed this unref'd parag flagged since 2008. --Mervyn (talk) 16:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The term snob plurals can be applied more generally to uses of forms of pluralization characterized, first, by their departure from the standard English rule of adding -(e)s, and, second, by the likelihood they are being so used to enhance the status of the speaker. While speaking to a group of monolingual Anglophone friends, someone talking about a recent trip to Russia who says, "We visited five oblasti," is most likely using a snob plural. Latinate plurals for nouns of Greek origin mentioned earlier in this article are often employed as snob plurals— cacti, for example, or hippopotami—although for substantial numbers of speakers, they are simply the unmarked usages. The use of nonstandard plurals can be one convenient way to communicate the claim that the speaker has a certain level of knowledge associated with sophistication and, more generally, prestige. Because the pragmatics of this usage are heavily dependent on context, it is impossible to say that a particular use of pluralization is, or is not, a snob plural in the absence of situational information. Someone speaking at an academic conference to fellow Slavicists might use oblasti without the expectation of enhanced social status and, therefore, not be using a snob plural (on the other hand, the speaker might fear a loss of social status for using oblasts). Articles in encyclopedias are, overall, written for the general reader and avoid forms of plural that would likely confuse those not already familiar with the topic.

Plural of "pair"

Is pair like dozen, score, hundred, etc. or not? How about its use in the poker hand "two pair(s)"? Regardless, would an expert add the answers to the Plurals of numbers section? —Quantling (talk | contribs) 19:20, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Germanies and Italies

It doesn't take a genius to see that our current rule about regularizing the plural of Germany (in particular) is false to standard English practice. The citations are to some online tutoring site, and a 404. Should we change this? --Orange Mike | Talk 20:08, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

'English words with uncommon properties' deleted

The page English words with uncommon properties was deleted per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/English words with uncommon properties. Deletion review is currently under way at Wikipedia:Deletion review#English words with uncommon properties, but pending that discussion the article has no content. I have therefore removed the hatnote from this article redirecting users to that one. Cnilep (talk) 04:22, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Place names

"Geographical place names ending with an "s" generally function as grammatically singular even if they look plural, for example: Arkansas, Athens, the Andes, ... the Netherlands, Paris (France or Texas), the Philippines..." is not entirely correct. At least not in British English. Where the place being named is undoubtedly singular (e.g. Paris, Arkansas, Wales) then, yes it's always grammatically singular. Where the place can be thought of as either singular or plural the usage change accordingly, e.g. "The Andes is a mountain range in South America" (one range) or "The Andes are higher than the Rockies" (many mountains), "The Philippines is a country in south-east Asia" (one country) or "The Philippines are botanically diverse" (many islands). Thryduulf (talk) 20:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

lives to lifes --Recent [2011] morphophonemic alternations

Will a more qualified Editor please consider editing

  Almost-regular plurals
        lives to lifes 

seems to be a recent phonetic shift first noted by this informant in the speech of, possibly Nordic linage, Utah LDS (Mormon) in church meetings but also now noted in the speech of a few Broadcast Journalists from possibly related origins.Malichii (talk) 13:11, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm from Ohio, US, about an hour west-northwest of Columbus. In singular nouns that end in [f] and [θ] I have never pluralized them to [vz] and [ðz] but rather [fs] and [θs] respectively, and most people I know from this area do the same thing. Hallaman3 (talk) 16:14, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

moths (voiced /mɒðz/...) added location.

Is the voiced form:

    moths   (voiced /mɒðz/...) 

a 'rare' variation? This informant grew up with this form in Walnut Creek, CA in the '50s but with family origins largely from New England by way of 100 years in mainly Academic cast Utah circles.Malichii (talk) 13:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

/mɒðz/ is not a pronunciation commonly heard in the UK, so it's not universal. Whether it's rare or regional in the US I can't say. Thryduulf (talk) 16:11, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I have always known the plural of moth to be voiced, in the manner of path>paths, truth>truths, bath>baths. However, I imagine it can also be unvoiced like breath>breaths, breadth>breadths, etc...--14:00, 3 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.94.106.159 (talk)

Plurals of numbers

"English, like some other languages, treats large numerals as nouns"

The example of "there were a hundred soldiers" is used.

However, usages of a and an are often synonymous with the number one; like French un and une. Thus, the example could easily be read as saying "there were one hundred soldiers", rather than treating hundred as a noun. This is not my area of expertise, but I'd recommend that somebody better versed in this area provides both a source and a better example for the assertion that English treats large numerals as nouns. --EcoChap (talk) 12:40, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The French un and une are both numbers as well as the indefinite singular article: you count un, deux, trois. . . But in English a/an are only articles, not numbers; no one would count a, two, three. . . Articles are only used with nouns. Wschart (talk) 18:26, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Correct pronunciation of "process"

"Some people treat process as if it belonged to this class, pronouncing processes /ˈprɒsɨsiːz/ instead of standard /ˈprɒsɛsɨz/. Since the word comes from Latin processus, whose plural in the fourth declension is processūs with a long u, this pronunciation is by analogy, not etymology." It's not clear to me which pronunciation is in fact correct. DrSlony (talk) 23:59, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I realise that this question is almost six months old now, but... why should one be incorrect? garik (talk) 19:29, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Scissors

Is "this scissors is dull" really regarded as correct anywhere? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.19.73 (talk) 09:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Panino, panini

Italian loanwords like panini, zucchini, broccoli, biscotti, graffiti, paparazzi, etc.. are included in the section "Singulars as plural and plurals as singular" under the heading "Plural words becoming singular". This is completely wrong. In fact, the rule is that masculine Italian words are borrowed into English in the plural form. Exceptions include technical music terms like 'canto', which were borrowed much earlier than words like 'panini'. These Italian borrowings take the regular English plural '-s': paninis, broccolis, zucchinis... paparazzi is a bit of an exception since it was originally used as a collective noun ('the paparazzi' meaning something like 'the press'), and so 'paparazzo' is sometimes used as a pseudo-backformation. In any case, these Italian loanwords are a category unto themselves and do not belong with words like 'data'. Also note that the tendency to borrow plurals as singulars is very common cross-linguistically. For example, French uses 'un brownies' (a brownie) and 'un jeans' (a pair of jeans).--174.94.106.159 (talk) 13:58, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but I think borrowing Italian words in the plural is hardly a rule. What about libretto, carpaccio, capuccino and so on? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.205.31 (talk) 15:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

German and Irish plurals

Two other languages which occasionally provide foreign plurals in English are German and Irish. The only correct plural for lied according to wiktionary is lieder (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lied). And many Irish use plurals like taoisigh for taoiseach and other words of official use (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/taoiseach). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.205.31 (talk) 15:07, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

And as an Irish dance dad (and spouse) in the States, I can assure you I've been to quite a few feisanna. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:42, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

"Mawashia"

I deleted mawashia as a so-called irregular plural of Japanese mawashi since there's no evidence it exists, either on mawashi's page, or from a Google search. I'm not familiar with any Japanese loans with irregular plurals. All loanwords are either unchanged (Japanese usage) or take standard English -s. Tocharianne (talk) 20:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

More on "moths"

I put a "citation needed" tag on the statement that "voiced /mɒðz/ is rare but does occur in New England and Canada" because... well, I've always pronounced it "/mɒðz/", I don't recall hearing anyone else pronounce it anything but "/mɒðz/", and I was born and raised in Southern California. "/mɒθs/" just sounds really weird to me. I see there was a previous discussion about this plural a few months ago, but this seemed to end in adding the location where this pronunciation is used, and if it is a regional matter I'm not at all convinced the given region is correct. Maybe it is, and I'm just pronouncing it weirdly and somehow never noticed that everyone else around me here in L.A. has been pronouncing the word differently than I have (I'm not being sarcastic; I grant that that really is a possibility), but I'd like to see some kind of reliable citation backing that up. --Smeazel (talk) 05:53, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Title

Does anyone think a better title would be Plural nouns in English or Plural nouns (English)? "English plural" is an oddly particular phrase (reminds me of "Oxford comma"). Designate (talk) 22:12, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Something like that, yes. Maybe simply "English plurals" or "Plurals in English". Victor Yus (talk) 08:15, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I changed it to "English plurals", for the moment. Happy to continue considering other possibilities. Victor Yus (talk) 15:11, 10 May 2013 (UTC)