Ununsual plural forms in English

Guest   Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:01 pm GMT
<<I've never seen quite so many thatched cottages with roses growing round the doors and windows anywhere else>>

Interesting. Years ago, I remember flying over England (probably the extreme north), and looking down between clouds at a bunch of thatched roofs. For all these years, I always assumed they were part of a theme park or resort hotel, or something like that. Maybe they were real?

BTW, that's the only time I've ever seen the UK at all.
Travis   Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:03 pm GMT
>>Vax and Vaxen (although Vax systems are pretty rare these days).<<

Nah, that is a modern innovation related to the use of "boxen" as a plural for "box" and "Emacsen" as a plural for "Emacs" - which is not related at all to the "-en" in vixen but rather weak plurals like "oxen", "children", "brethen" (modern "brothers"), "shoen" (modern "shoes"), and so on...
Guest   Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:25 pm GMT
<<"shoen" (modern "shoes")>>

also spelt "shoon"
Travis   Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:27 pm GMT
"Brethen" should be "brethren" in my previous post.
Leasnam   Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:40 pm GMT
<<it really belongs in the category of words in English that show i-mutation, like strong/strength; food/feed; broad/breadth; proud/pride; etc >>

also:

knot/knit
gold/gild(en), guild
doom/deem
foot/fetch, feet
drop/drip
bond, band/bend
hood/heed
fall/fell (cut down [trees])
whole/heal
room/ream
hang/hinge
old/eld (age), elder, eldest
Matt   Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:41 am GMT
It is amazing how people rush to post messages on subjects they are ignorant about.

This post was rubbish:

"spouse spice
wuss weasel
boot beet
vow vowel
Roman Romen"

and so is blouse-blice. It may have been some kind of wierd joke, but it was rubbish all the same.

As someone said, the correct plural of octopus is octopuses. It was not "originally" as someone claimed octopi, because the -us was never a Latin ending. But there are some (poorly educated) people who believe all words in -us take a plural in -i. Words whose plural must be -i include radius and university alumnus.

Another thing to watch out for is 4th declension endings. The plural of census is meant to be census, but I think the number of people who are aware of this can be counted on one hand. You will probably find censuses among hoi polloi.

Another one to watch: criterion, criteria. The poorly educated would not realise criteria is plural. You can say "ditto" for phenomenon and others.

-(i)um is another case. Beef premiums is the correct plural in UK usage, referring to payments from the European Union, but once again the poorly educated may say premia.

Data should be plural (with the singular "datum"), but few people realise nowadays. These data are very interesting! or (in the speech of the uneducated) this data is very interesting. Agenda is now usually used as a singular noun, although plural in Latin.

Another issue is nouns like politics and economics. British politics are very interesting, or, what you will normally find, British politics is very interesting.

Cow, kine (rare plural, but not completely extinct)
Genus Genera
Corpus Corpora

French plurals, eg bureaux, are being used less and less, but to be elegant should be retained.
Matt   Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:44 am GMT
nucleus nuclei
Guest   Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:53 pm GMT
paparazzo - paparazzi
Guest   Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:03 am GMT
rubbish - rhubarb
joke - jocks
compliment - complement
Guest   Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:21 pm GMT
Fungus - Fungi
Uriel   Sat Sep 06, 2008 8:34 pm GMT
Exactly. That's not poor education, that was a norm when I was growing up -- octopus, octopi; cactus, cacti; nucleus, nuclei; fungus, fungi. (And not funjee, either -- hard G, long I!) I believe in medicine, the plural of sulcus (the folds on the surface of the brain) is also sulci. Whether it was that way in Latin or not....
Uriel   Sat Sep 06, 2008 8:36 pm GMT
There are also alveolus and alveoli.
George   Sat Sep 06, 2008 10:27 pm GMT
<<In the speech of Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall, counties of southern England,...>>

These counties are in the South West (or the West Country) and not the South. Perhaps this appears strange but it's similar to the US in that, say, Florida is not in the South although the map suggests it should be. The southern counties are roughly the ones that border the southern half of London.
Uriel   Sun Sep 07, 2008 12:15 am GMT
Are those like the "Home Counties"? (And whose home are they supposed to be?)