PLURALS

Regular Plurals

                           

For most nouns, the general rule for making the word plural is:

• If the word ends in s, x, ch or sh, add an "es" Bless + es = blesses

Box + es = boxes

catch + es = catches

Dish + es = dishes

• If the word ends in a consonant (all letters except a, e, i, o, u) + y, then change the "y" to an "i" and ad the letters "es" Baby = Babies

Candy = candies

• For all other non-irregular nouns, simply add an "s" to the end of the word Cat = cats

Dog = dogs

Kid = kids

Unchanging Nouns (no-change)

Certain other nouns have the same plural form as singular form. A large number of animals happen to follow this rule. For example, among others:

• Deer is "deer" whether singular or plural
• Fish is "fish" whether singular or plural
• Bison is "bison" whether singular or plural
• Moose is "moose" whether singular or plural
• Elk is "elk" whether singular or plural. 

Other Irregular Plurals

In addition to non-count nouns and unchanging nouns, there are several different types of irregular plurals which follow a pattern in the English language.

• For words that end in "fe," you change the letter "f" to the letter "v" and then add "s"

Knife = knives

Wife = wives

• For words that end in "f" you change the "f" to a "v" and add "es"

Half = halves

Loaf = loaves

• For words that end in "us," change the "us" to an "i"

Syllabus = syallabi

• For words that end in "o" add "es"

Tomato = tomatoes

Words that Change Form

Certain words do not add a letter to the end, but instead change the word itself. These words simply need to be memorized. Some examples include:

• Man to men
• Person to people
• Tooth to teeth
• Goose to geese
• Foot to feet
• Mouse to mice
• Ox to oxen
• Cow to kine
• Louse to lice
• Child to children
• Die to dice