Article 62AYS The Weird Plurals In English That Are Exceptions to the Standard Addition of an ‘S’

The Weird Plurals In English That Are Exceptions to the Standard Addition of an ‘S’

by
Lori Dorn
from Laughing Squid on (#62AYS)
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Linguist Rob Watts of RobWords, who previously offered tips for translating French into English and explained the different words used for purple nightshades, discussed different nouns are exceptions to the standard pluralizing rule in English of adding an s".

Everyone knows that you make plurals in English by an adding an S. So how come we have men" instead of mans" and mice" instead of mouses"? And why are sheep" and fish" the plural and the singular terms?

Examples include using the same word for singular and plural (fish, sheep, deer, data), plurals from Old English (men, geese, mice, feet, teeth), and plurals from Middle English that end in en" ( child to children, brother to brethren). He also explains the plurals of words ending in fe" (knife to knives, wife to wives, life to lives), plurals from words ending in is" (crisis to crises, axis to axes, plurals that come from the Greek ending in ion" (phenomenon to phenomena, criterion to criteria) and other random plurals that end with us" (cactus to cacti, radius to radii, focus to foci).

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