Grammatically Correct: Nouns With Special Plural Forms
In the never ending quest to conquer learning a language there are always special situations one will encounter in leaning the vocabulary of the language and English is no exception. Please note that the information provided is written using common English spelling and grammar in the United States and UK and other English speaking countries may use slightly different variances of the information provided here.
When learning the plural forms of nouns the simplest rule is to add just an “s” or “es”. However there are some nouns that when converting to their plural form does not follow that rule. These nouns have what is called irregular plural forms and these plural forms are spelled differently. There are also some nouns that singular and plural forms are spelled exactly the same. There are also nouns that make use of their Latin heritage when forming their plural words. Now let’s take a look at some of these special situations.
- The following are examples of nouns that require different spelling for their singular and plural forms:
Man becomes men
Woman becomes women
Child becomes children
Mouse becomes mice
Goose becomes geese
Tooth becomes teeth
Foot becomes feet
- Here are some examples of nouns that have the same singular and plural forms:
Sheep (singular) and sheep (plural)
Moose (singular) and moose (plural)
Deer (singular) and deer (plural)
Trout (singular) and trout (plural)
Also most Sports Teams and Corporation Fall under this category
Examples:
San Antonio Spurs, New York Yankees (used for both singular and plural reference}
Ford Motor Company, General Motors, IBM
- Nouns that maintain their Latin or Greek form in the plural
Here are some examples:
Nucleus becomes nuclei
Syllabus becomes syllabi
Fungus becomes fungi
Cactus becomes cacti (although cactuses is also acceptable)
Index becomes indices (indexes is also acceptable)
Appendix becomes appendices (appendixes is also acceptable)
Source: My third grade teacher, Mrs. Gunning