If the plural of man is ''men'', why isn't the plural of pan ''pen''?
If the plural of man is ''men'', why isn't the plural of pan
The plural of ''pan'' is not ''pen'', because ''pen'' is already a word with two different meanings i.e. ''a writing instrument'' and ''an enclosure''. It would be confusing if the plural of ''pan'' were ''pen'' because of that.
However, ''men'' does not have any other meanings, so it's okay for the plural of ''man''.
However, ''men'' does not have any other meanings, so it's okay for the plural of ''man''.
BigBluehead,
I've got to hand it to SpaceFlight for what will probably be the most original answer, however, to really answer your question,you have to go back to the earliest origins of these words. "Man" existed in primitive Germanic from the beginning . It is a cognate With Gothic manisko and Old High German manisc both meaning "manly" and more distantly related to Latin masculus. The plural form is irregular (men) in English but also in German (Männer)
"Pan" was a later loan word into primitive Germanic. Dictionary.com gives the following etymology for "pan" which I believe to be accurate:
[Middle English, from Old English panne, from West Germanic *panna, probably from Vulgar Latin *patna, from Latin patina, shallow pan, platter, from Greek patan. See pet- in Indo-European Roots.]
So "pan" is ultimately not a Germanic word but a loan from another Indo-European language (Greek via Latin). This probably partly explains why it's plural form is different in English (pans) and German (Pfannen) but it is also originally a feminine noun and still is in German where as man was a masculine noun in Old English and still is in German (Mann). Because of the gender difference, different plural forms would have been required.
Männer
I've got to hand it to SpaceFlight for what will probably be the most original answer, however, to really answer your question,you have to go back to the earliest origins of these words. "Man" existed in primitive Germanic from the beginning . It is a cognate With Gothic manisko and Old High German manisc both meaning "manly" and more distantly related to Latin masculus. The plural form is irregular (men) in English but also in German (Männer)
"Pan" was a later loan word into primitive Germanic. Dictionary.com gives the following etymology for "pan" which I believe to be accurate:
[Middle English, from Old English panne, from West Germanic *panna, probably from Vulgar Latin *patna, from Latin patina, shallow pan, platter, from Greek patan. See pet- in Indo-European Roots.]
So "pan" is ultimately not a Germanic word but a loan from another Indo-European language (Greek via Latin). This probably partly explains why it's plural form is different in English (pans) and German (Pfannen) but it is also originally a feminine noun and still is in German where as man was a masculine noun in Old English and still is in German (Mann). Because of the gender difference, different plural forms would have been required.
Männer
**If the plural of man is ''men'', why isn't the plural of pan ''pen''?**
You could ask the same about mouse, child, ox, goose, tooth, foot, half, knife etc etc.....
It's easy to answer your question:
Because ENGLISH is the illogical, inconsistent, frustrating, expressive, expansive, extensive, adorable, maddening, graphic, descriptive, comprehensive, inomprehensive, universal, variable, delightful mess it is.
I'd be totally lost without it in spite of everything.
You could ask the same about mouse, child, ox, goose, tooth, foot, half, knife etc etc.....
It's easy to answer your question:
Because ENGLISH is the illogical, inconsistent, frustrating, expressive, expansive, extensive, adorable, maddening, graphic, descriptive, comprehensive, inomprehensive, universal, variable, delightful mess it is.
I'd be totally lost without it in spite of everything.
"If the plural of man is 'men', why isn't the plural of pan 'pen'?"
Because it's not.
Next question please.
Because it's not.
Next question please.
I guess it's just because it's an irregular noun and English language doesn't have rules, or better said it has less rules then other languages.
=>If the plural of man is ''men'', why isn't the plural of pan ''pen''? <=
I don't know,why arren't bananas blue?
I don't know,why arren't bananas blue?
The word "pen" exist already, but it has nothing to do with the word "pan".Man" is an old word, it´s man eaven in Swedish and men is the plural word for it also in Swedish, but you spell it "män". Finally you can say that the word pen is busy.
The reason why the plural of "man" is "men" is because that word is a leftover from Old English which usually formed plurals by adding "n" or "en" on the the end of words, a bit like German does.
That's also why "woman" changes to "women" and "child" changes to "children", because they are Old English words that have remained unchanged.
I don't think the idiosycracies and the strangeness of English are frustrating. I think it's fun.
Me too ADAM....couldn't agree with you more! As I say above...it's a delightful mess.
Adam, though, "man" has the plural of "men" not because of a plural ending of -"(e)n" in Old English, which, yes, some words in Old English and Middle English had, but rather due to being one of the few preserved cases of morphological umlaut in English, along with words like "mice" and "lice". In this way, it is directly analogous to German "Männer", which also shows such umlaut, along with the suffix -"er". "Mice" and "lice" also have analogous versions formed via umlaut, along with the suffix -"e", in German, which are "Mäuse" (singular "Maus") and "Läuse" (singular "Laus").