Irregular English Plurals

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Fri, 2011-04-01 18:47

Years ago, I came across an academic essay which argued that there are only 13 properly distinguished irregular plurals in English.

I thought that this might make for a sprited debate amongst wordsmiths and so I raise it for consideration and argument.

I'll leave which the 13 are for the moment (consider it a quiz).

However, I will say that foreign words (those that have retained their essential origins) don't count; for examble alumnus and alumni. There are also (quite complicated) rules governing nouns ending with some letters and these also don't count as they do follow a definable convention. For instance, potato/potatoes, wolf/wolves, quiz/quizzes, daisy/dasies, etc.

Lastly (for now) I'd also disregard those words, mainly fish names (but also sheep and aircraft), where the plural is the same as the singular. Such a construction cannot properly be called a derived plural when it is the same as the singular.

There are other points that can be made but I'll now open the subject to the Forums pages (or as a pedant like me would put it, to the Fora pages).

Sat, 2011-04-02 17:52

celticman

Sorry h.jenkins the best I can do is sheep and sheepeys?

Mon, 2011-04-04 21:59

jennifer

And here I'll be a Tolkien geek and bring forward the dwarf/dwarfs/dwarves argument... anyone else geeky enough to know what I mean?! J x

Mon, 2011-04-04 22:53

rjnewlyn

Yes, I think he liked 'dwarfs' but I can't remember the reason why (something to do with old English linguistics I think).

Mon, 2011-04-04 23:01

rjnewlyn

I suppose man/men might count as number two after 's' ... And ox/oxen as number three (unless that's counted as the same) That's me finished

Mon, 2011-04-04 23:30

h jenkins

Jennifer, I'm geeky enough to know what you mean. If I remember correctly, Tolkien suggested that dwarrow should be the plural. He used it as an alternative name for Moria - The Dwarrowdelf. But, if it's dwarfs or dwarves (OED gives both), neither is irregular, so afraid it doesn't count. Yes, rjn, Man/men and ox/oxen are two of them. Considering 'man', the next should be obvious as does another that derives from them, if you get what I mean. Helvigo Jenkins

Helvigo Jenkins

Tue, 2011-04-05 06:54

jennifer

I believe Tolkien argued for 'dwarves' as it followed language conventions, when 'correct' was technically 'dwarfs' - I'll take a linguist over a dictionary any day! Plus, they probably amended it post-T anyway! If man /men, then woman /women... Child / children? Goose / Geese? Is the plural of Moose Meese? Although a Moose isn't English, so probably not! Mouse /Mice? How am I doing? One could argue that very few words are technically 'English', since even 'Old English' is Germanic in origin.... J x

Tue, 2011-04-05 09:16

fatboy74

foot/feet? Brain tired now...

Tue, 2011-04-05 11:00

h jenkins

Jennifer and fb - yes, women, children, geese, mice and feet all count. With the two that rjn suggested, that makes 7. Just six more to go. At this point, perhaps I should mention that three of the rest are pretty archaic, or rather two of them are and a third is in imminent danger of becoming so. However, only one of the 13 is truly obscure; all the rest are quite well known words. Helvigo Jenkins

Helvigo Jenkins

Tue, 2011-04-05 13:46

#10

celticman

leaf and leaves (I picked that up writing bill and the ufo 11) but what about vaudeville (s) Don't know

Tue, 2011-04-05 14:13

#11

h jenkins

Leaf/leaves follows a rule; ie when a noun ends with 'f', drop the 'f' and add 'ves'. Other examples are - wolves, dwarves, calves, loaves, halves, etc. It's true that some nouns ending with 'f' don't follow this rule (eg reefs, roofs, serfs), but they instead follow the more general rule of - just add an 's'. Either way, they are controlled by a simple rule and so are not 'irregular'. Helvigo Jenkins

Helvigo Jenkins

Tue, 2011-04-05 19:13

#12

sonora

louse/lice cow/kine cow/ky brother/brethren

'Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.'

Tue, 2011-04-05 19:16

#13

sonora

Ooh, and tooth/teeth C/:o>

'Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.'

Tue, 2011-04-05 19:21

#14

sonora

And how about cow/cattle?

'Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.'

Tue, 2011-04-05 19:56

#15

h jenkins

Hi Sonora, Yes, lice and teeth both count. You've also got the two archaic ones and the most obscure, brethren and kine(as the plural of cow). But the words cow and cattle are different words altogether. For similar reasons, person/people doesn't count either as there is a clear etymological separation between the two words. I know that, informally, person is sometimes 'pluralised' to people, but the more correct usage is persons. Anyway, that takes us to 11, so perhaps it's time to finish this. The last two are die/dice and penny/pence. The full list is therefore:- man/men woman/women child/children brother/brethren die/dice mouse/mice louse/lice goose/geese ox/oxen cow/kine foot/feet tooth/teeth penny/pence. But don't blame me if you disagree. As I said at the outset, it came from an academic essay I read. Helvigo Jenkins

Helvigo Jenkins

Tue, 2011-04-05 21:13

#16

jennifer

So, it's really just somebody's opinion then?! Hahaha! J x

Tue, 2011-04-05 22:32

#17

rjnewlyn

Well the man/woman and louse/mouse don't sound very much like different rules to me but I bow to the etymologists (and entymologists and campanologists and palaeontologists and all the rest of them) and I don't blame Helvigo of course. Very edifying. Rob

Tue, 2011-04-05 23:57

#18

brooosh

What about house and houses, where the 's' changes sound?

Thu, 2011-04-21 11:23

#19

Sean Playfair

What about ones that don't change: sheep, fish etc? Surely there's no hard fast rule to those?

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