English plural
Regular plurals
The plural morpheme in English is suffixed to the end of most nouns. Regular English plurals fall into three classes, depending upon the sound that ends the singular form:
Where a singular noun ends in a sibilant sound/s/, /z/, //, //, /t/,or /d/he plural is formed by adding /z/. The spelling adds -es, or -s if the singular already ends in -e:
kiss
kisses
/ksz/
phase
phases
/fezz/
dish
dishes
/dz/
massage
massages
/msz/ or /msz/
witch
witches
/wtz/
judge
judges
/ddz/
When the singular form ends in a voiceless consonant (other than a sibilant) /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/ or //, the plural is formed by adding /s/. The spelling adds -s. Examples:
lap
laps
/lps/
cat
cats
/kts/
clock
clocks
/klks/
cough
coughs
/kfs/
death
deaths
/ds/
For all other words (i.e. words ending in vowels or voiced non-sibilants) the regular plural adds /z/, represented orthographically by -s:
boy
boys
/bz/
girl
girls
/rlz/
chair
chairs
/trz/
Morphophonetically, these rules are sufficient to describe most English plurals. However, there are several complications introduced in spelling.
The -oes rule: most nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant also form their plurals by adding -es (pronounced /z/):
hero
heroes
potato
potatoes
volcano
volcanoes or volcanos
The -ies rule: nouns ending in a y preceded by a consonant usually drop the y and add -ies (pronounced /iz/). This is taught to many North American and British students with the mnemonic: “Change the y to i and add es”:
cherry
cherries
lady
ladies
However, proper nouns (particularly those for people or places) ending in a y preceded by a consonant form their plurals regularly :
Germany
Germanys (as in The two Germanys were unified in 1990; this rule is commonly not adhered to as several book titles show,; Sicilies and Scillies, rather than Sicilys and Scillys, are the standard plurals of Sicily and Scilly.)
Harry
Harrys (as in There are three Harrys in our office)
The rule does not apply to words that are merely capitalized common nouns:
P&O Ferries (from ferry)
Other exceptions include lay-bys and stand-bys.
Words ending in a y preceded by a vowel form their plurals regularly:
day
days
monkey
monkeys
(Money/Monies is an exception, but money can also form its plural regularly.)
Almost-regular plurals
Many nouns of foreign origin, including almost all Italian loanwords, are exceptions to the -oes rule:
canto
cantos
homo
homos
piano
pianos
portico
porticos
pro
pros
quarto (paper size)
quartos
kimono
kimonos
In Old and Middle English voiceless fricatives /f/,// mutated to voiced fricatives before a voiced ending. In some words this voicing survives in the modern English plural. In the case of /f/ changing to /v/, the mutation is indicated in the orthography as well; also, a silent e is added in this case if the singular does not already end with -e:
bath
baths
/bz/, /bz/
mouth
mouths
/maz/
calf
calves
/kvz/, /kvz/
knife
knives
/navz/
In addition, there is one word where /s/ is voiced in the plural:
house
houses
/hazz/
Many nouns ending in /f/ or // nevertheless retain the voiceless consonant:
moth
moths
proof
proofs
Some can do either:
dwarf1
dwarfs/dwarves
hoof
hoofs/hooves
roof
roofs/rooves
staff2
staffs/staves
turf
turfs/turves (latter rare)
leaf3
Leafs/leaves (see footnote)
^ Note 1: For dwarf, the common form of the plural was dwarfss, for example, in Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfsntil J. R. R. Tolkien popularized dwarves; he intended the changed spelling to differentiate the “dwarf” fantasy race in his novels from the cuter and simpler beings common in fairy tales, but his usage has since spread. Multiple astronomical dwarf stars and multiple nonmythological short human beings, however, remain dwarfs.
^ Note 2: For staff (/stf/ or /stf/) in the sense of “a body of employees”, the plural is always staff; otherwise, both staffs and staves (/stevz/) are acceptable, except in compounds; such as flagstaffs. Staves is rare in North America except in the sense of “magic rod”, or the musical notation tool. stave of a barrel or cask is a back-formation from staves, which is its plural. (See the Plural to singular by back-formation section below.)
^ Note 3: For leaf, the former refers specifically to the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey team, while the latter is the term used for the plural of the plant part in general. (See the collective nouns section below.)
Irregular plurals
There are many other less regular ways of forming plurals, usually stemming from older forms of English or from foreign borrowings.
Nouns with identical singular and plural
Some nouns spell their singular and plural exactly alike; some linguists regard these as regular plurals. Many of these are the names of animals:
deer
moose
sheep
bison
salmon
pike
trout
fish
swine
The plural deers is listed in some dictionaries, but is widely considered to be an error. As a general rule, game or other animals are often referred to in the singular for the plural in a sporting context: “He shot six brace of pheasant”, “Carruthers bagged a dozen tiger last year”, whereas in another context such as zoology or tourism the regular plural would be used. Similarly, nearly all kinds of fish have no separate plural form (though there are exceptions such as rays, sharks or lampreys). And the word “fish” itself is also troublesome, being generally used as a plural when in the context of food, but forming a regular plural otherwise (thus “three lots of fish and chips”, “the industry landed 5,200 tonnes of fish in 1998” but “the order of fishes”, “the miracle of the loaves and fishes” the phrase “sleep with the fishes”); usage does vary, however, so that for example the phrase “five fish in an aquarium” might to another native user be “five fishes in an aquarium”. Using the plural form fish would imply many individual fish of the same species while fishes would imply many individual fish of differing species. At present, there is no name for words that have identical singular and plural forms. Other nouns that have identical singular and plural forms include:
aircraft
blues4
cannon (sometimes cannons)
head5
stone (occasionally stones)6
^ Note 4: Referring to individual songs in the blues musical style: “play me a blues”; “he sang three blues and a calypso”
^ Note 5: Referring, in the plural, to animals in a herd: “fifty head of cattle”
^ Note 6: As a unit of weight equal to 14 lbs avoirdupois
Irregular -(e)n plurals
The plural of a few nouns can also be formed from the singular by adding -n or -en, stemming from the Old English weak declension:
ox
oxen
(particularly when referring to a team of draft animals, sometimes oxes American)
child
children
(actually earlier plural “cildra/cildru” plus -en suffix, forming a double plural)
brother
brethren
(archaic plural of brother; earlier “brether” plus -en suffix, forming a double plural; now used in fraternal order)
cow
kine
(archaic/regional; actually earlier plural “kye” [cf. Scots “kye” – “cows”] plus -en suffix, forming a double plural)
egg
eyren/eggys
(rare/dialectal Northern England)
eye
eyen
(rare, found in some regional dialects)
shoe
shoon
(rare/dialectal)
house
housen
(rare/dialectal, used by Rudyard Kipling in Puck of Pook’s Hill)
hose
hosen
(rare/archaic, used in King James Version of the Bible)
The word box, referring to a computer, is semi-humorously pluralized boxen in the Leet dialect. Multiple Vax computers, likewise, are sometimes called Vaxen particularly if operating as a cluster, but multiple Unix systems are usually Unices along the Latin model.
The word sistren, referring to Christian sisters [modeled on brethren], is also semi-humorously pluralized.
Ablaut plurals
The plural is sometimes formed by simply changing the vowel sound of the singular, in a process called ablaut (these are sometimes called mutated plurals):
foot
feet
goose
geese
louse
lice
man
men
mouse
mice
tooth
teeth
woman
women
Mouse is sometimes pluralized mouses in discussions of the computer mouse; however, mice is just as common.
Mongoose, however, has the plural mongooses.
Irregular plurals from Latin and Greek
English has borrowed a great many words from Latin and Classical Greek. The general trend with loanwords is toward what is called Anglicization or naturalization, that is, the re-formation of the word and its inflections as normal English words. Many nouns (particularly ones from Latin) have retained their original plurals for some time after they are introduced. Other nouns have become Anglicized, taking on the normal “s” ending. In some cases, both forms are still competing.
The choice of a form can often depend on context: for a librarian, the plural of appendix is appendices (following the original language); for physicians, however, the plural of appendix is appendixes. Likewise, a radio engineer works with antennas and an entomologist deals with antennae. Choice of form can also depend on the level of discourse: traditional Latin plurals are found more often in academic and scientific contexts, whereas in daily speech the anglicized forms are more common. In the following table, the Latin plurals are listed, together with the Anglicized forms when they are more common.
Final a becomes -ae (also -), or just adds -s:
alumna
alumnae
formula
formulae/formulas
encyclopedia (rarely encyclopdia)
encyclopedias (encyclopediae is rare)
Final ex or ix becomes -ices (pronounced /siz/), or just adds -es:
index
indices
/ndsiz/
or indexes
matrix
matrices
/metrsiz/
vertex
vertices
/vrtsiz/
Some people treat process as if it belonged to this class, pronouncing processes /prssiz/ instead of standard /prssz/. Since the word comes from Latin processus, whose plural in the fourth declension is processs with a long u, this pronunciation is by analogy, not etymology.
Final is becomes es (pronounced /iz/):
axis
axes
/ksiz/
crisis
crises
/krasiz/
testis
testes
/tstiz/
Note that axes, the plural of axis, is pronounced differently from axes (/ksz/), the plural of ax(e).
Final ies remains unchanged:
series
series
species
species
Final on becomes -a:
automaton
automata
criterion
criteria
phenomenon
phenomena (more below)
polyhedron
polyhedra
Final um becomes -a, or just adds -s:
addendum
addenda
agendum (obsolete, not listed in most dictionaries)
agenda means a “list of items of business at a meeting” and has the plural agendas
datum
data (Now usually treated as a singular mass noun in both informal and educated usage, but usage in scientific publications shows a strong UK/US divide. U.S. usage prefers treating data in the singular in all contexts, including serious and academic publishing. UK usage now widely accepts treating data as singular in standard English, including educated everyday usage at least in non-scientific use. UK scientific publishing usually still prefers treating it as a plural. Some UK university style guides recommend using data for both singular and plural use and some recommend treating it only as a singular in connection with computers.)
In engineering, drafting, surveying, and geodesy, and in weight and balance calculations for aircraft, a datum (plural datums or data) is a reference point, surface, or axis on an object or the earth surface against which measurements are made.
forum
fora/forums
medium
media (in communications and computers; now often treated as a singular mass noun)/
mediums (spiritualists, or items of medium size etc.)
corrigendum
corrigenda
memorandum
memoranda/memorandums
millennium
millennia
Final us becomes -i (second declension, [a]) or -era or -ora (third declension), or just adds -es (especially in fourth declension, where it would otherwise be the same as the singular):
alumnus
alumni
corpus
corpora
census
censuses
focus
foci
genus
genera
prospectus
prospectuses (plural prospectus is rare)
radius
radii
syllabus
syllabi
viscus
viscera
Virus had no plural ending in Latin; the plural in English is usually viruses. See Plural form of words ending in -us#Virus.
cactus
cactuses/cacti (in Arizona many people avoid either choice with cactus as both singular and plural.)
fungus
fungi
hippopotamus
hippopotamuses/hippopotami
octopus
octopuses (note: octopi also occurs, although it is strictly speaking unfounded[, because it is not a Latin noun of the second declension, but rather a Latinized form of Greek -, eight-foot. The theoretically correct form octopodes is rarely used.)
platypus
platypuses (same as octopus: platypi occurs but is etymologically incorrect, and platypodes, while technically correct, is even rarer than octopodes)
terminus
termini/terminuses
uterus
uteri/uteruses
Final us remains unchanged in the plural (fourth declension – the plural has a long to differentiate it from the singular short ):
meatus
meatus
Colloquial usages based in a humorous fashion on the second declension include Elvii to refer to multiple Elvis impersonators and Loti, used by petrolheads to refer to Lotus automobiles in the plural.
Final as in one case of a noun of Greek origin changes to -antes:
Atlas
Atlantes (statues of the hero); but
atlas
atlases (map collections)
Final ma in nouns of Greek origin can add -ta, although -s is usually also acceptable, and in many cases more common.
stigma
stigmata/stigmas
stoma
stomata/stomas
schema
schemata/schemas
dogma
dogmata/dogmas
lemma
lemmata/lemmas
Irregular plurals from other languages
Some nouns of French origin add an -x, which may be silent or pronounced /z/:
beau
beaux
bureau
bureaus or bureaux
chteau
chteaux
tableau
tableaux
Foreign terms may take native plural forms, especially when the user is addressing an audience familiar with the language. In such cases, the conventionally formed English plural may sound awkward or be confusing.
Nouns of Slavic origin add -a or -i according to native rules, or just -s:
kniazhestvo
kniazhestva/kniazhestvos
kobzar
kobzari/kobzars
oblast
oblasti/oblasts
Nouns of Hebrew origin add -im or -ot (generally m/f) according to native rules, or just -s:
cherub
cherubim/cherubs
matzah
matzot/matzahs
seraph
seraphim/seraphs
Note that ot is pronounced os (with unvoiced s) in the Ashkenazi dialect.
Many nouns of Japanese origin have no plural form and do not change:
benshi
benshi
otaku
otaku
samurai
samurai
However, other nouns such as kimonos, ninjas, futons, and tsunamis are more often seen with a regular English plural.
In New Zealand English, nouns of Mori origin can either take an -s or have no separate plural form. Words more connected to Mori culture and used in that context tend to retain the same form, while names of flora and fauna may or may not take an -s, depending on context. Many regard omission as more correct:
kiwi7
kiwi/kiwis
kowhai
kowhai/kowhais
Mori8
Mori/(occasionally Moris)
marae
marae
tui
tuis/tui
waka
waka
^ Note 7: When referring to the bird, kiwi may or may not take an -s; when used as an informal term for a New Zealander, it always takes an -s.
^ Note 8: Mori, when referring to a person of that ethnicity, does not usually take an -s. Many speakers avoid the use of Mori as a noun, and instead use it only as an adjective.
In Canada and Alaska, some words borrowed from Inuktitut retain traditional plurals (see also Plurals of names of peoples, below):
Inuk
Inuit
inukshuk
inukshuit
Nouns from languages other than the above generally form plurals as if they were native English words:
canoe
canoes
cwm
cwms (Welsh valley)
igloo
igloos
kangaroo
kangaroos
kayak
kayaks
kindergarten
kindergartens
pizza
pizzas
sauna
saunas
Words better known in the plural
Some words of foreign origin are much better known in the plural; usage of the original singular may be considered pedantic or actually incorrect or worse by some speakers. In common usage, the original plural is considered the singular form. In many cases, back-formation has produced a regularized plural.
Original singular
Original plural/
common singular
Common plural
agendum
agenda9
agendas
alga
algae
algae
biscotto
biscotti
biscotti
candelabrum
candelabra
candelabras
datum10
data
data (mass noun)
graffito
graffiti
graffiti (mass noun)
insigne
insignia
insignias
opus
opera
operas
panino
panini
paninis (currently gaining use)
paparazzo
paparazzi
paparazzi
^ Note 9: An agenda commonly is used to mean a list of agenda.
^ Note 10: A single piece of data is sometimes referred to as a data point. In engineering, drafting, surveying, and geodesy, and in weight and balance calculations for aircraft, a datum (plural datums or data) is a reference point, surface, or axis on an object or the earth surface against which measurements are made.
Some plural nouns are used as suchnvariably being accompanied by a plural verb formhile their singular forms are rarely encountered:
nuptial
nuptials
phalanx11
phalanges
tiding
tidings
victual
victuals
viscus
viscera
^ Note 11: In medical terminology, a phalanx is any bone of the finger or toe. A military phalanx is pluralized phalanxes.
A related phenomenon is the confusion of a foreign plural for its singular form:
criterion
criteria
phenomenon
phenomena
consortium
consortia
symposium
symposia
Magazine was derived from Arabic via French. It was originally plural, but in English, it is always regarded as singular.
Plurals of numbers
English, like some other languages, treats large numerals as nouns (cf. “there were ten soldiers” and “there were a hundred soldiers”). Thus, dozens is preferred to tens, while hundreds and thousands are also completely acceptable.
Plurals of numbers differ according to how they are used. The following rules apply to dozen, score, hundred, thousand, million, and similar terms:
When modified by a number, the plural is not inflected, that is, has no -s added. Hence one hundred, two hundred, etc. For vaguer large numbers, one may say several hundred or many hundreds.
When used alone, or followed by a prepositional phrase, the plural is inflected: dozens of complaints, scores of people. However, either complaints by the dozen or complaints by the dozens is acceptable (although differing in meaning).
The preposition of is used when speaking of nonspecific items identified by pronouns: two hundred of these, three dozen of those. The of is not used for a number of specific items: three hundred oriental rugs. However, if the pronoun is included with the specific item, the of is used: five million of those dollar bills.
Nouns used attributively
Nouns used attributively to qualify other nouns are generally in the singular, even though for example, a dog catcher catches more than one dog, and a department store has more than one department. This is true even for some binary nouns where the singular form is not found in isolation, such as trouser press or scissor kick. It is also true where the attribute noun is itself qualified with a number, such as a twenty-dollar bill, a ten-foot pole or a two-man tent. The plural is used for pluralia tantum nouns; a glasses case is for eyeglasses, while a glass case is made of glass. The plural may also be used to emphasise the plurality of the attribute, especially in British English: a careers advisor, a languages expert. The plural is also more common with irregular plurals for certain attributions: women killers are women, whereas woman killers kill women.
Defective nouns
Some nouns have no singular form. Such a noun is called a plurale tantum (see also Words better known in the plural above):
cattle, billiards, clothes, measles, thanks
Some of these do have singular adjective forms, such as billiard ball. In addition, some are treated as singular in construction, e.g., “billiards is a game played on a table with billiard balls and a cue”, “measles is an infectious disease”. Thanks is usually treated as plural.
A particular set of nouns, describing things having two parts, comprises the major group of pluralia tantum in modern English:
pants, pliers, scissors, shorts, tongs (metalworking), trousers, glasses (a pair of)
Note that these words are interchangeable with a pair of scissors, a pair of trousers, and so forth. In the U.S. fashion industry it is common to refer to a single pair of pants as a pant hough this is a back-formation, the English word (deriving from the French pantalon) was originally singular. In the same field, one half of a pair of scissors separated from the other half is, rather illogically, referred to as a half-scissor. Tweezers used to be part of this group, but tweezer has come into common usage since the second half of the twentieth century.
Mass nouns (or uncountable nouns) do not represent distinct objects, so the singular and plural semantics do not apply in the same way. Some examples:
Abstract nouns
deceit, information, cunning, and nouns derived from adjectives, such as honesty, wisdom, beauty, intelligence, stupidity, curiosity, and words ending with ‘ness’, such as goodness, freshness, laziness, and nouns which are homonyms of adjectives with a similar meaning, such as good, bad (can also use goodness and badness), hot, cold
Arts and sciences
chemistry, geometry, surgery, blues,12 jazz, rock and roll, impressionism, surrealism. This includes those that look plural but function as grammatically singular in English: mathematics, arithmetics, ethics, physics, mechanics, optics, thermodynamics, linguistics, acoustics, etc.; e.g., mathematics is fun
Chemical elements and other physical entities:
antimony, gold, oxygen, equipment, furniture, gear, species, air, water, sand, traffic
^ Note 12: Referring to the musical style as a whole.
Some mass nouns can be pluralized, but the meaning thereof may change slightly. For example, when I have two grain(s) of sand, I do not have two sands; I have sand. There is more sand in your pile, not more sands. However, there could be many ands of Africaither many distinct stretches of sand, or distinct types of sand of interest to geologists or builders, or simply the allusive sands of Africa.
It is rare to pluralize furniture in this way. Nor would information be so treated, except in the case of criminal informations, which are prosecutor’s briefs similar to indictments.
There is only one class of atoms called oxygen, but there are several isotopes of oxygen, which might be referred to as different oxygens. In casual speech, oxygen might be used as shorthand for “oxygen atoms”, but in this case, it is not a mass noun, so it is entirely sensible to refer to multiple oxygens in the same molecule.
One would interpret Bob’s wisdoms as various pieces of Bob’s wisdom (that is, don’t run with scissors, defer to those with greater knowledge), deceits as a series of instances of deceitful behavior (lied on income tax, dated my wife), and the different idlenesses of the worker as plural distinct manifestations of the mass concept of idleness (or as different types of idleness, “bone lazy” versus “no work to do”).
Specie and species make a fascinating case. Both words come from a Latin word meaning “kind”, but they do not form a singular-plural pair; they are separate nouns. Coins, such as nickels, euros (see Linguistic issues concerning the euro), and cents are specie, but there is no plural. The idea is “payment in kind”. Moreover, species, the “kinds of living things”, is the same in singular and plural.
Plurals of compound nouns
The majority of English compound nouns have one basic term, or head, with which they end, and are pluralized in typical fashion:
able seaman
able seamen
head banger
head bangers
yellow-dog contract
yellow-dog contracts
A compound that has one head, with which it begins, usually pluralizes its head:
attorney general
attorneys general
bill of attainder
bills of attainder
court martial
courts martial
governor-general
governors-general
passerby
passersby
ship of the line
ships of the line
son-in-law
sons-in-law
minister-president
ministers-president
knight-errant
knights-errant
procurator fiscal (in Scotland)
procurators fiscal
It is common in informal speech to instead pluralize the last word in the manner typical of most English nouns, but in edited prose, the forms given above are preferred.
If a compound can be thought to have two heads, both of them tend to be pluralized when the first head has an irregular plural form:
man-child
men-children
manservant
menservants
woman doctor
women doctors
Two-headed compounds in which the first head has a standard plural form, however, tend to pluralize only the final head:
city-state
city-states
nurse-practitioner
nurse-practitioners
scholar-poet
scholar-poets
In military usage, the term general, as part of an officer’s title, is etymologically an adjective, but it has been adopted as a noun and thus a head, so compound titles employing it are pluralized at the end:
brigadier general
brigadier generals
major general
major generals
For compounds of three or more words that have a head (or a term functioning as a head) with an irregular plural form, only that term is pluralized:
man-about-town
men-about-town
man-of-war
men-of-war
woman of the street
women of the street
For many other compounds of three or more words with a head at the frontspecially in cases where the compound is ad hoc and/or the head is metaphoricalt is generally regarded as acceptable to pluralize either the first major term or the last (if open when singular, such compounds tend to take hyphens when plural in the latter case):
ham on rye
hams on rye/ham-on-ryes
jack-in-the-box
jacks-in-the-box/jack-in-the-boxes
jack-in-the-pulpit
jacks-in-the-pulpit/jack-in-the-pulpits
With a few extended compounds, both terms may be pluralizedgain, with an alternative (which may be more prevalent, e.g., heads of state):
head of state
heads of states/heads of state
son of a bitch
sons of bitches/sons-of-a-bitch
With extended compounds constructed around o’, only the last term is pluralized (or left unchanged if it is already plural):
cat-o’-nine-tails
cat-o’-nine-tails
jack-o’-lantern
jack-o’-lanterns
will-o’-the-wisp
will-o’-the-wisps
Compounds from the French
Many English compounds have been borrowed directly from the French, and these generally follow a somewhat different set of rules. French-loaned compounds with a head at the beginning tend to pluralize both words, according to French practice:
agent provocateur
agents provocateurs
entente cordiale
ententes cordiales
fait accompli
faits accomplis
ide fixe
ides fixes
For compounds adopted directly from the French where the head comes at the end, it is generally regarded as acceptable either to pluralize both words or only the last:
beau geste
beaux gestes/beau gestes
belle poque
belles poques/belle poques
bon mot
bons mots/bon mots
bon vivant
bons vivants/bon vivants
French-loaned compounds longer than two words tend to follow the rules of the original language, which usually involves pluralizing only the head at the beginning:
aide-de-camp
aides-de-camp
cri de coeur
cris de coeur
coup d’tat
coups d’tat
tour de force
tours de force
but:
tte–tte
tte–ttes
A distinctive case is the compound film noir. For this French-loaned artistic term, English-language texts variously use as the plural films noirs, films noir, and, most prevalently, film noirs. The 11th edition of the standard Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (2006) lists film noirs as the preferred style. Three primary bases may be identified for this:
Unlike other compounds borrowed directly from the French, film noir is used to refer primarily to English-language cultural artifacts; a typically English-style plural is thus unusually appropriate.
Again, unlike other foreign-loaned compounds, film noir refers specifically to the products of popular culture; consequently, popular usage holds more orthographical authority than is usual.
English has adopted noir as a stand-alone noun in artistic contexts, leading it to serve as the lone head in a variety of compounds (e.g., psycho-noir, sci-fi noir).
See also the headless nouns section below.
Plurals (and singulars) of headless nouns
In The Language Instinct, linguist Steven Pinker discusses what he calls “headless words”, typically bahuvrihi compounds, like lowlife and Red Sox, in which life and sox are not heads semantically; that is, a lowlife is not a type of life, nor are Red Sox a group of similarly colored socks. When the common form of such a word is singular, it is treated as if it has a regular plural, even if the final constituent of the word is usually pluralized in a nonregular fashion. Thus, more than one lowlife are lowlifes, not “lowlives”, according to Pinker. A related process can be observed with the compound maple leaf, pluralized in its common-noun form as maple leaves; when it is adopted as the name of an ice-hockey team, its plural becomes Maple Leafs. Other proposed examples include:
flatfoot
flatfoots
sabertooth
sabertooths
still life
still lifes
tenderfoot
tenderfoots
An exception is Blackfoot, of which the plural can be Blackfeet, though that form of the name is officially rejected by the Blackfoot First Nations of Canada.
Where words have taken on completely new meanings, irregular plurals may become regularized. Antennas is the accepted plural of antenna when it refers to electronic equipment, in contrast to antennae for arthropod feelers. The computer mouse is sometimes considered headless and pluralized as mouses, but also often as mice; in contrast to the compound headless words just discussed, there is a considerably stronger metaphorical relationship in this case, with many computer pointing devices resembling rodents with tails.
In other cases, the common form of a headless word is a nonregular plural; when such a word lacks a terminal s, it is treated as defective, thus making the singular version of the word identical: an individual member of the Boston baseball team is a Red Sox, just as all twenty-five are; one Chicago White Sox is a White Sox.
Related collective nouns
Sports team names like those discussed aboves well as more grammatically ordinary names such as Reds, Knicks, and Canadiens, and straightforward compound names such as Blue Jaysorm a particular set of collective nouns. Closely related to the class of essentially plural headless nouns typified by Red Sox are the growing number of orthographically singular sports team names that may be classified as examples of a special type of collective nounne that (a) has identical terms for both the collective and an individual thereof (as with the essentially plural headless noun) but (b) is not used as a counting noun beyond the singular. Two examples include the name of the Miami NBA teameatnd the name of the Colorado NHL teamvalanche. While heat is a mass noun, whereas avalanche is a normal counting noun, in the context of a team name, both words operate as this special type of collective noun. Just as with the Sox, any one of the twelve current members of Miami’s pro basketball squad is a Heat; similarly, any individual member of the Colorado Avalanche is an Avalanche. However, where one may say, for instance, that “two Red Sox struck out” or “four White Sox homered,” the equivalent term is invariably used as an adjective when referring to multiple players of one of the teams named in this increasingly popular way: “two Heat players fought” or “four Avalanche players scored” (Avalanche followers have a little more flexibility, with “Avs” as the team’s unofficial, but widely used nickname). Other examples include:
NHL
WNBA
Tampa Bay Lightning
Indiana Fever
Minnesota Wild
New York Liberty
NBA
Minnesota Lynx
Utah Jazz
Phoenix Mercury
Orlando Magic
Detroit Shock
Miami Heat
Chicago Sky
MLS
Charlotte Sting
Columbus Crew
Seattle Storm
Houston Dynamo
Connecticut Sun
Chicago Fire
Los Angeles Galaxy
New England Revolution
D.C. United
Note that in not every case above is it certain that the name is ever used in its noun form to refer to anything but the collective.e., not even to an individual player; in other cases, it is possible that the name is sometimes used in its noun form (with or without a terminal s appended) to refer to multiple players, short of the whole collective.
An exceptional case is that of the St. Louis Blues hockey team. The club is named after the song “St. Louis Blues,” which makes the team name Blues an irregularly pluralized word to begin withne whose plural is identical to its singular. By this reckoning, then, an individual team member would also be a “Blues”. However, because the name is spelled like a regular plural, its use as a collective noun leads to a process of back-formation, with the result that a single player on the team is known as a Blue. The club name’s distinctive orthographical nature further allows it to be used freely as a counting noun, so that one may speak of, for instance, “two Blues in the penalty box”.
Pinker discusses a case that could be construed as opposite, that of the Florida Marlins baseball team. Describing how the issue was raised by talk show host David Letterman, Pinker asks, Why is the name Marlins “given that those fish are referred to in the plural as marlin?” An analogous question could be asked about the Maple Leafs. Pinker’s answer comes down to this: “A name is not the same thing as a noun.” Consequently, names (and nouns that derive from names) based on nouns with irregular plurals do not acquire themhough, as we see with Red Sox, new irregularities may arise.
Nouns with multiple plurals
Some nouns have two plurals, one used to refer to a number of things considered individually, the other to refer to a number of things collectively. In some cases, one of the two is nowadays archaic or dialectal.
brother
brothers
brethren13
cannon
cannons
cannon
child
children
childer14
cloth
cloths
clothes15
cow
cows
kine16
die
dice
dies17
fish
fish
fishes18
iris (plant)
iris
irises19
penny
pennies
pence20,21
person
persons
people22
pig
pigs
swine
sow
sows
swine
^ Note 13: Brethren was used exclusively earlier, but over time, it has been replaced brothers. Brethren are still used in some contexts such as brethren of a monastic order.
^ Note 14: Childer has all but disappeared, but can still be seen in Childermas (Innocents’ Day).
^ Note 15: Clothes refers collectively to all of a household’s washable cloth articles, but is now used almost exclusively of garments.
^ Note 16: Kine is still used in some rural English dialects.
^ Note 17: Dies is used as the plural for die in the sense of a mould; dice as the plural (and increasingly as the singular) in the sense of a small random number generator. Dice is also the accepted plural form of die in the semiconductor industry.
^ Note 18: Fish: the plural for one species of fish, or caught fish, is fish[citation needed], but plural fish of multiple indivduals fishes is used.
^ Note 19: For multiple plants, iris is used, but irises is used for multiple blossoms.
^ Note 20: If one has several (British) one-penny pieces, one has several pennies. Pence is used for an amount of money, which can be made up of a number of coins of different denominations: one penny and one five-penny piece are together worth six pence. The suffixed minor currency unit of ‘p’ (/pi/) is often vocalised, where such small divisions of currency are discussed in common speech, and used for both the singular and the ‘amount plural’, but ‘number plurals’ build upon the base values and any omission of the unit shifts the plural to the coin’s numerator (e.g. “I have a one /pi/ and three twenty /piz/ and two fifties in my pocket. I cannot believe I only have one pound, sixty-one /pi/ left after last night.”). In written speech, a number of coins might be “two 10ps”, although those that prefer to use apostrophes for initialisms may decide to use the “two 10p’s” variant.
^ Note 21: Penny and pennies also refer to one or more U.S. or Canadian one-cent pieces, though in American and Canadian usage, a nickel is worth five cents, not five pence.
^ Note 22: The word people is usually treated as the suppletive plural of person (one person, many people). However, in legal and other formal contexts, the plural of person is persons; furthermore, people can also be a singular noun with its own plural (for example, “We are many persons, from many peoples”).
Plurals of symbols and initialisms
Individual letters and abbreviations whose plural would be ambiguous if only an -s were added are pluralized by adding -‘s.
mind your p’s and q’s
A.A.’s and B.A.’s
the note had three PS’s
Opinion is divided on whether to extend this use of the apostrophe to related but nonambiguous cases, such as the plurals of numerals (e.g., 1990’s vs. 1990s) and words used as terms (e.g., “his writing uses a lot of but’s” vs. “his writing uses a lot of buts”). Some writers favor the use of the apostrophe as consistent with its application in ambiguous cases; others say it confuses the plural with the possessive -‘s and should be avoided whenever possible in pluralization, a view with which The Chicago Manual of Style concurs.
English and many other European languages form the plural of a one-letter abbreviation by doubling it: p. (“page”), pp. (“pages”); l. (“line”), ll. (“lines”). These abbreviations are used in literary work, such as footnotes and bibliographies.
Acronyms are initialisms used as if they are words. The most consistent approach for pluralizing acronyms is to simply add a lowercase -s as a suffix. This works well even for acronyms ending with an s, as with CASs (pronounced “kazzes”), while still making it possible to use the possessive form (-‘s) for acronyms without confusion. The traditional style of pluralizing single letters with -‘s was naturally extended to acronyms when they were commonly written with periods. This form is still preferred by some people for all initialisms and thus -‘s as a suffix is often seen in informal usage.
Plural to singular by back-formation
Some words have unusually formed singulars and plurals, but develop “normal” singular-plural pairs by back-formation. For example, pease (modern peas) was in origin a singular with plural peasen. However, pease came to be analysed as plural by analogy, from which a new singular pea was formed; the spelling of pease was also altered accordingly, surviving only in the name of the dish pease porridge or pease pudding. Similarly, termites and primates were the three-syllable plurals of termes and primas; these singulars were lost, however, and the plural forms reduced to two syllables. Syringe is a back-formation from syringes, itself the plural of syrinx, a musical instrument. Cherry is from Norman French cherise. Phases was once the plural of phasis, but the singular is now phase.
Kudos is a singular Greek word meaning praise, but is often taken to be a plural. At present, however, kudo is considered an error, though the usage is becoming more common as kudos becomes better known. The name of the Greek sandwich style gyros is, increasingly, undergoing a similar transformation.
The singular form of Spanish tamales (Spanish pronunciation: [tamales]) is tamal ([tamal]). The anglicized version of tamales is pronounced /tmliz/ and the back-formed singular is tamale /tmli/.
The term, from Latin, for the main upper arm flexor in the singular is the biceps muscle (from biceps brachii); however, many English speakers take it to be a plural and refer to the muscle of only one arm, by back-formation, as a bicep. The correctlthough very seldom usedatin plural would be bicipites.
The word sastrugi (hard ridges on deep snow) is of Russian origin and its singular is sastruga; but the imaginary Latin-type singular sastrugus has sometimes been used.
Place names
Geographical place names ending with an s generally function as grammatically singular even if they look plural, for example: Athens, Brussels, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Naples, Paris, the Thames, the United States. For example, the United States is a country.
Plurals of names of peoples
There are several different rules for this.
In discussing peoples whose demonym takes -man or -woman, there are three options: pluralize to -men or -women if referring to individuals, and use the root alone if referring to the whole nation, or add people.
Dutchman
Dutchwoman
Dutchmen
Dutchwomen
the Dutch
Englishman
Englishwoman
Englishmen
Englishwomen
the English
Frenchman
Frenchwoman
Frenchmen
Frenchwomen
the French
Irishman
Irishwoman
Irishmen
Irishwomen
the Irish
Scotsman
Scotswoman
Scotsmen
Scotswomen
the Scots
Welshman
Welshwoman
Welshmen
Welshwomen
the Welsh
One can say “a Scots(wo)man” or “a Scot”, “Scots(wo)men”, “Scottish people”, or “Scots,” and “the Scottish” or “the Scots”. (Scotch is considered old fashioned.)
Several peoples have names that are simple nouns and can be pluralized by the addition of either -s or -ish (the later case often calls for the elimination of terminal letters so the pluralizing suffix can be connected directly with the last consonant of the root):
Dane
Danes
the Danes
the Danish
Finn
Finns
the Finns
the Finnish
Spaniard
Spaniards
the Spaniards
the Spanish (much more common)
Swede
Swedes
the Swedes
the Swedish
Names of peoples that end in -ese take no plural:
Chinese
Chinese
Chinese people
the Chinese
Japanese
Japanese
Japanese people
the Japanese
Other names of peoples that have no plural form include Swiss and Qubcois, although the latter is interchangeable with Quebecer, which pluralizes as Quebecers.
Most names for Native Americans are not pluralized:
Blood
Hopi
Iroquois
Mi’kmaq
Ojibwa
Sioux
Some exceptions include Algonquins, Aztecs, Chippewas, Crees, Hurons, Mohawks, and Oneidas. Note also the following words borrowed from Inuktitut:
Inuk
Inuit
Iqalummiuq
Iqalummiut (“inhabitant of Iqaluit”)
Nunavimmiuq
Nunavimmiut (“inhabitant of Nunavik”)
Nunavummiuq
Nunavummiut (“inhabitant of Nunavut”)
Names of most other peoples of the world are pluralized using the normal English rules.
Discretionary plurals
Main article: English collective nouns
A number of words like army, company, crowd, fleet, government, majority, mess, number, pack, and party may refer either to a single entity or the members of the set that compose it. Thus, as H. W. Fowler describes, in British English they are “treated as singular or plural at discretion”; Fowler notes that occasionally a “delicate distinction” is made possible by discretionary plurals: “The Cabinet is divided is better, because in the order of thought a whole must precede division; and The Cabinet are agreed is better, because it takes two or more to agree.” Also in British English, names of towns and countries take plural verbs when they refer to sports teams but singular verbs when they refer to the actual place: England are playing Germany tonight refers to a football game, but England is the most populous country of the United Kingdom refers to the country. In North American English, such words are invariably treated as singular.
‘Snob plurals’
Another type of irregular plural occurs in the register of the English upper classes in the context of field sports, where the singular form is used in place of the plural, as in “two lion” or “five pheasant”. Eric Partridge refers to these as “snob plurals” and conjectures that they may have developed by analogy with the common English irregular plural animal words “deer”, “sheep” and “trout”.
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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 hippopotamilthough 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.
See also
Look up Appendix:English irregular plurals in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
English collective nouns
English verbs
English personal pronouns
Count noun
Mass noun
Singular they
References
^ English Irregular Plural Nouns
^ UNIT S4: YS OR IES?
^ Mary Fulbrook, The Two Germanies. 1945-1990 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996)
^ Henry Ashby Turner, The two Germanies since 1945 (New Haven: Yale UP, 1987)
^ Entry for “money” in dictionary.com
^ a b Emerson, Oliver Farrar (1921). The history of the English language. Macmillan. p. 299. OCLC 317104. http://books.google.com/books?id=VjUFAQAAIAAJ.
^ E.g. Collins English Dictionary, 6th ed. (Glasgow: HarperCollins, 2003).
^ “Sometimes scientists think of data as plural, as in These data do not support the conclusions. But more often scientists and researchers think of data as a singular mass entity like information, and most people now follow this in general usage.” http://www.bartleby.com/61/51/D0035100.html
^ “…of the 136 distinguished consultants on usage polled for the 1975 Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, 49% responded that they use “The data is…” in writing. And in casual speech, 65% use data as singular. Those who defend “The data is…” often point to the fact that agenda is also, strictly, a plural, but is nearly always regarded as a single list and takes a singular verb. You’ll probably never hear anyone ask: “Are the agenda interesting?” http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF3/334.html
^ Summary of dictionary sources and scholarly usage
^ New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1999
^ “…in educated everyday usage as represented by the Guardian newspaper, it is nowadays most often used as a singular.” http://www.eisu2.bham.ac.uk/johnstf/revis006.htm
^ AskOxford: data
^ http://www.eisu2.bham.ac.uk/johnstf/revis006.htm
^ UoN Style Book – Singular or plural – Media and Public Relations Office – The University of Nottingham
^ http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=182902
^ AskOxford: What are the plurals of ‘octopus’, ‘hippopotamus’, ‘syllabus’?
^ “The word agenda, for example, was originally plural (from agendum: ‘something to be acted on’) but is nowadays used only as a singular, and nobody in their right mind would insist that it should be used as a plural.” http://www.eisu2.bham.ac.uk/johnstf/revis006.htm
^ Pinker, Stephen, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (New York: Perennial, 2000 ), 139.
^ Fowler, H. W., A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2nd ed., revised by Sir Ernest Gowers (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 403.
^ Partridge, Eric, Usage and Abusage: A Guide to Good English, revised by Janet Whitcut (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1997), pp. 23839.
External links
Rules for Irregular Plural Formation of Nouns summary by Pat Byrd, Department of Applied Linguistics & ESL, Georgia State University
An Algorithmic Approach to English Pluralization by Damian Conway
Freebase Pluraliser API plural names of freebase.com topics by David Huynh
Categories: English grammar | Grammatical numberHidden categories: Articles needing additional references from June 2007 | All articles needing additional references | Articles that may contain original research from September 2007 | All articles that may contain original research | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from July 2007 | NPOV disputes from October 2008 | All NPOV disputes | Articles needing additional references from October 2008
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