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So, the article states:
-- Yath 17:48, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
what is viri as a singular word
vir
'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)
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
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)
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 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.
Thanks for that. But there's no preference in the Manual_of_Style? Anything goes?
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
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)
George Rodney Maruri Game ( talk) 22:00, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
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)
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.
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)
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
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.
-- 71.169.130.63 19:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
> 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)
Are there other plurals like this?
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).
Is there any evidence for the existence of this term as a purported numeral? — Paul G 16:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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).
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)
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.
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)
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)
Kept the ref'd parag and removed this unref'd parag flagged since 2008. -- Mervyn ( talk) 16:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
"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)
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)
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)
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)
"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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
So, the article states:
-- Yath 17:48, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
what is viri as a singular word
vir
'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)
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
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)
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 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.
Thanks for that. But there's no preference in the Manual_of_Style? Anything goes?
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
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)
George Rodney Maruri Game ( talk) 22:00, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
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)
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.
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)
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
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.
-- 71.169.130.63 19:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
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)
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)
> 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)
Are there other plurals like this?
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).
Is there any evidence for the existence of this term as a purported numeral? — Paul G 16:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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).
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)
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.
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)
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)
Kept the ref'd parag and removed this unref'd parag flagged since 2008. -- Mervyn ( talk) 16:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
"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)
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)
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)
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)
"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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)