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Scary Plural Forms

Beware of Scary Plural Forms

There are many nouns in the English language. For most of them, all you need to do is add an -s to make one become many. Sadly, there are exceptions. This should help you figure them out

Normal words

Most normal words get an s at the back when converted to plural, like socks. Words that end in -s, -sh, -ch, or -x get an -es at the end, like bushes and boxes. Words that end with -y have their y become an -ies.

f-words (no, not that one…)

Words that end with an -f in singular form are one exception. Take a look at the word leaf. Here, the plural form isn’t leafs, it’s actually leaves. Yeah, that -f turned into a -ves. And even if the word ends with -fe, the -f still becomes a -v. Why? I have no idea, but that how it is.

o-words

O is a cool letter. But anyway, when dealing with words that end in o, it’s easy to get mixed up. Some of them get an -s, likes photos and logos, while other ones get an -es like echoes and heroes. Now that’s crazy!

Random, crazy words

Just take a look at this chart:

Singular Plural
Child Children
Man Men
Woman Women
Foot Feet
Tooth Teeth
Die Dice
Mouse Mice

These are words whose plural form seems to me like a totally random thing. Some guy probably just said, “Hmm, mouse… let’s make everyone fail their English tests and call more than one mouse mice, not mouses or anything that would make any sense!”. There are more of these, and you have to watch out for them.

Some of the plural rules are odd

Words that end with a -us, like radius, become -i, like radii, or nucleus and nuclei. Words that end in -ium become an -ia, like medium and media. Words that end in -is become -es, like basis and bases. Words that end in -ion have that turn into -ia, like criterion and criteria. Got all that?

Some words don’t even change at all

Words like sheep, fish, series, and species are the same in both singular and plural form. So no, there’s no such thing as sheeps.

Help! What can I do to remember all these???

The simple answer is: practice, practice, and then practice some more. Like building up your vocabulary or working on your math, practice is the only thing that will help you perfect your pluralizing (wow, I didn’t even know that’s a word) skills. Read, write, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

For example, I got a lot of help from Joanna Crump’s English Grammar Webpage for an incredible list of words and their plural forms, which you can find right here.

Good luck with your plural forms!

Astha
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Astha said:

Nice lesson….refreshing and seems to make things sooo easy!

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  • Posted 5 months ago.
sumit270
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sumit270 said:

Basic, but significant stuffs

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summe66
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summe66 said:

PLEASE HELP, IS THERE SUCH A WORD AS TESTS. I WAS INFORMED THAT THE WORD IS TEST REGARDLESS OF HOW IT IS USED.

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  • Posted 2 months ago.
summe66
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summe66 said:

This is my first time on this site. I believe that this is going to be very educational. I have also joined.

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acrosstheuniverse
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acrosstheuniverse said in response to:
summe66
summe66’s post:
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PLEASE HELP, IS THERE SUCH A WORD AS TESTS. I WAS INFORMED THAT THE WORD IS TEST REGARDLESS OF HOW IT IS USED.

Hi Summe66,

Welcome to LearnHub. I’m glad you’re finding the resources here helpful already, that’s great to hear.

To answer your question about the plural form of tests, yes it does exist. An example of this usage would be “In the coming weeks, I will have to write 7 tests”. It would be incorrect to say something like “I must achieve high marks on all test coming up.” Adding an s to make it plural is an easy rule to remember.

See you around the Hub!

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  • Posted 2 months ago.
lucyinthesky
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lucyinthesky said in response to:
acrosstheuniverse
acrosstheuniverse’s post:
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Hi Summe66,

Welcome to LearnHub. I’m glad you’re finding the resources here helpful already, that’s great to hear.

To answer your question about the plural form of tests, yes it does exist. An example of this usage would be “In the coming weeks, I will have to write 7 tests”. It would be incorrect to say something like “I must achieve high marks on all test coming up.” Adding an s to make it plural is an easy rule to remember.

See you around the Hub!

You are right in stating there is a plural form for the noun test – e.g., “There will be a test”, “There will be tests”.

Also keep in mind there is the verb “to test”. “I will test you”, “You will be tested”. In the present tense, if someone is being tested at that very moment, you can say -“Amy is testing Becky”. If someone is being tested on an ongoing basis, you can say “Amy is her tutor. Amy tests Becky on English once a week.”

I hope this is helpful to you!

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  • Posted 2 months ago.
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