A brief history of irregular plurals
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A brief history of IRREGULAR PLURALS
There are many irregular plurals in English. The regular form is, of course, to add ‘s’, for example: one dog, two dogs. If a singular noun ends in s, ch, sh, o or x, we add es. An example is boxes. Y changes to ies, as in ladies. Then there are the nouns which end in f or fe. These change to ve. One example is shelf>shelves. So far, so good. If there is a rule, it makes things a bit easier! Unfortunately, there are irregular plurals which you just have to learn. But there is always a reason why something is irregular. Let’s have a look at a few. The plural of corn is corn and there are quite a few nouns like this, where we have no change. These words are from Old English, where the plural ended in ‘u’ and has now been dropped. We also have nouns where the middle part changes, such as goose>geese. These nouns follow a Germanic pattern. The same Germanic origin accounts for plural nouns ending in en, like women. Next, we have many ‘science’ words, for example, stimulus>stimuli, stomata> stomatae. These nouns follow the Latin and occasionally, the Ancient Greek pattern. Some concept words follow the Greek form, e.g. criterion>criteria, crisis>crises. Is that all clear? I hope so! There are other words adopted from foreign languages which obey the rules of the original language. Then there are a few words which have two plurals, for example person>persons/people. Both of these forms derive from Latin. Nowadays, ‘persons’ is used in more formal situations, as in, when the police are seeking ‘persons of interest.’ However, something is puzzling me: why are trousers plural? It is one garment! Likewise, shorts, knickers, jeans and tights. One explanation is that originally, there were two parts to these items and they were put on separately. Maybe! Which leads us to irregular verbs, but I think we have had enough of irregulars for now, don’t you agree?!
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So, do you know the PLURALS of the following nouns? Let’s see! Write them in .
OVER TO YOU : 1. Can you name the items in the box in the top left-hand corner and state their plurals? What is their derivation/origin? 2. How are plurals formed in your language? Do you think they are hard or easy for foreign students to learn? Explain your answer.
KEYS:
a. Feet, b. wolves, c. churches, d. babies e. elves, f. foxes, g. tomatoes, h. ashes, i. bacteria, j. halves, k. men, l. children, m. fungi*, n. phenomena, o. cherries, p. knives, q. wheat, r. wives, s. prefixes, t. dishes.
T/F 1F, 2T, 3T, 4.T. 5F, 6F (Greek and Latin), 7T, 8T, 9T, 10F
In the box: sheep,(OE) children,(German) mice,(German) teeth, (German) fish (can be fishes),OE men, women. – both German.
· Fungi is pronounced ‘fun guy’, in fact there are many jokes along those lines 😉
· Phenomenon/a is Greek.
· Other plurals which have a completely different form: cow>cattle (also cows)