SCG Language Tutorials English Grammar Counts and Plurals

ENGLISH PLURALS

Fill in the missing nouns and their plurals:

A ______

TWO ______

A  ______

SEVEN ______

ONE ______

FOUR ______

AN____

TWELVE _____ (OR A DOZEN ____)

SIX ______ (OR HALF-A-DOZEN ______)

ONE ______

TWO ______

A CHICKEN ______

A PLATE OF ______

AN______

MANY ______

ONE ______

SIX ______

A ______

TWO ______

A _____

FOUR ______

A _____

TWO _______

Answers:

A boat. Two boats.

A carton. Seven Cartons. [Or, a box. Seven boxes]

One child. Four children.

An egg. Twelve eggs. [Or, a dozen eggs.]

Six eggs. [Or, half-a-dozen eggs.]

One ox. Two oxen.

A chicken sandwich. A plate of sandwiches.

An umbrella. Many umbrellas.

One man. Six men.

A woman. Two women.

A ring. Four rings.

A bus. Two buses.

NOTICE:

Where plural nouns end with an "s", "e" needs to be inserted only if the singular form end in "s", "sh", "ch", "z" or "x" all of which would lose their plural sounds in conversation without the extra syllable.

But be aware that some words do not follow this rule: "oxen" uses "n" not "s" in plural form, whilst "foxes" is the plural of "fox" and for "index", the plural is "indices". "Men", "women" and "children" also behave atypically.

Unfortunately no simple rules can be applied universally. The only way to know which is correct is to learn one word at a time. This is because English contains so many words of foreign origin, many having different plural rules.

As you can see, most nouns make their plurals by simply adding –s to the end (e.g. cat/cats, book/books, journey/journeys).

The main types of noun that do not are:

ENGLISH NOUNS THAT ARE THE SAME SINGULAR AND PLURAL

One category more than any which can cause confusion are English words which have no distinction between singular and plural:

SINGULAR        PLURAL

DEER              DEER

FISH                FISH

MEANS          MEANS

OFFSPRING   OFFSPRING

POLICE           POLICE

SERIES            SERIES

SHEEP            SHEEP

SPECIES          SPECIES

NOUNS ENDING IN "-y"

If the noun ends with a consonant plus -y, the plural is formed by changing "-y" to "-ies":

Nouns ending with "-ch", "-s", "-sh", "-x", or "-z"

Add "-es" to form the plural:

NOTICE: There is one exception to this rule. Whenever the "-ch" ending is pronounced with a ‘k’ sound, you add "-s" instead of "-es":

NOUNS ENDING IN "-f" or "-fe"

Nouns that end in a consonant or a single vowel plus "-f " or "-fe", change the "-f" or "-fe" to "-ves" in their plural forms:

Notice: nouns which end in two vowels plus "-f" usually form plurals in the normal way, with just an "-s":

NOUNS ENDING IN "-o":

Nouns ending in "-o" can add either "-s" or "-es" in the plural, and some can be spelled either way.

As a general rule, most nouns ending in "-o" add "-s" to make the plural:

Those which have a vowel before the final "-o" always just add "-s":

The most common nouns ending in "-o" that are always spelled with "-es" in the plural are listed below:

These common nouns ending in "-o" can be spelled with either "-s" or "-es" in the plural:

PLURALS OF FOREIGN NOUNS

The English language has absorbed words from many foreign sources, perhaps more than any other language. It continues to do so today. The plurals of foreign words which have come into English such as Latin or Greek often have two possible spellings: the foreign plural spelling and an English one. For example, you can spell the plural of "aquarium" (from Latin) as either "aquaria" (the Latin plural) or "aquariums" (the English plural).

WORDS OF LATIN ORIGIN

This is a list of some common words of Latin origin which can form plurals in two different ways:

NOTICE: There are a few Latin nouns in English which always form their plurals in the Latin way. These are usually scientific or technical terms. The most common ones are:

SINGULAR		PLURAL
ALGA	ALGAE
ALUMNUS	ALUMNAE
LARVA	LARVAE

WORDS OF GREEK ORIGIN

Nouns which end in "-is" usually come from Greek. Their plurals are made by changing the "-is" to "-es":

NOTICE: The plural form of "octopus" should always be "octopuses" and never "octopi". This is because the word was originally Greek, not Latin, and so the rules for Latin plurals don't apply.

WORDS OF FRENCH ORIGIN

Certain words of French origin have two possible plural forms: the original French plural and an English one. These words end in the letters "-eau", for example:

The English tend to use the French endings more often than Americans, who prefer to use the 'English' "-s".

WORDS OF ITALIAN ORIGIN

Most Italian words which have come into English form their plurals with an "-s", as if they were English words. For example, the Italian plural of "cappuccino" is "cappuccini", but when the word is used in English, its plural form is "cappuccinos". Here are some more examples:

NOTICE: A notable exception to this is the word "paparazzo", the plural form of which is "paparazzi" in English.

English has also taken over Italian words in their plural forms, typically these are the names for various kinds of pasta.

For example:

"spaghetti"; "tagliatelle"; "tortellini"; "cannelloni"; "lasagne".

Although these words are already in their Italian plural forms, they can take an "-s" to form English plurals in certain contexts.

For example:

"Table one have ordered three spaghettis and two cannellonis".

[Here, the meaning is ‘a dish or serving of spaghetti’ rather than ‘a kind of pasta’.]

Note that in British English, you should spell "lasagne" with an "-e" at the end. In American English it's spelled with an "-a" at the end, i.e. "lasagna" [which is the Italian singular form, though this is almost never used in Italian itself].

Words that have come into English from foreign languages are known as loanwords. Some of these loanwords have developed plural (or singular) forms in English that are regarded as grammatically incorrect because they go against the grammar of the original language, nevertheless, they are in common currency.

Unlike many other languages, English evolves not by following an agreed set of rules, but through the argot that develops in daily speech. An understanding of these developments is essential to learning the language.

You have seen the rules by which IRREGULAR ENGNLISH NOUNS take their plural forms. Below is a list of COMMON IRREGULAR NOUNS:

©SCG Language Tutorials 2014                            www.scglanguagetutorials.com