Collected Pointers for Fumblers of the English Language
Anatomy of a Sentence: Plurals

The plural form of most nouns is created simply by adding the letter s.

• more than one snake = snakes
• more than one ski = skis
• more than one Barrymore = Barrymores

Words that end in -ch, x, s or s-like sounds, however, will require an -es for the plural:

• more than one witch = witches
• more than one box = boxes
• more than one gas = gases
• more than one bus = buses
• more than one kiss = kisses
• more than one Jones = Joneses

In addition, there are several nouns that have irregular plural forms. Plurals formed in this way are sometimes called mutated (or mutating) plurals.

• more than one child = children
• more than one woman = women
• more than one man = men
• more than one person = people
• more than one goose = geese
• more than one mouse = mice
• more than one barracks = barracks
• more than one deer = deer

And, finally, there are nouns that maintain their Latin or Greek form in the plural. (See media and data and alumni, below.)

• more than one nucleus = nuclei
• more than one syllabus = syllabi
• more than one focus = foci
• more than one fungus = fungi
• more than one cactus = cacti (cactuses is acceptable)
• more than one thesis = theses
• more than one crisis = crises*
• more than one phenomenon = phenomena
• more than one index = indices (indexes is acceptable)
• more than one appendix = appendices (appendixes is acceptable)
• more than one criterion = criteria

[*Note the pronunciation of this word, crises: the second syllable sounds like ease. More than one base in the game of baseball is bases, but more than one basis for an argument, say, is also bases, and then we pronounce the word basease.]

A handful of nouns appear to be plural in form but take a singular verb:

• The news is bad.
• Gymnastics is fun to watch.
• Economics/mathematics/statistics is said to be difficult. ("Economics" can sometimes be a plural concept, as in "The economics of the situation demand that . . . .")

Numerical expressions are usually singular, but can be plural if the individuals within a numerical group are acting individually:

• Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money.
• One-half of the faculty is retiring this summer.
• One-half of the faculty have doctorates.
• Fifty percent of the students have voted already.

And another handful of nouns might seem to be singular in nature but take a plural form and always use a plural verb:

• My pants are torn. (Nowadays you will sometimes see this word as a singular "pant" [meaning one pair of pants] especially in clothing ads, but most writers would regard that as an affectation.)
• Her scissors were stolen.
• The glasses have slipped down his nose again.

When a noun names the title of something or is a word being used as a word, it is singular whether the word takes a singular form or not.

• Faces is the name of the new restaurant downtown.
• Okies, which most people regard as a disparaging word, was first used to describe the residents of Oklahoma during the 1930s.
• Chelmsley Brothers is the best moving company in town.
• Postcards is my favorite novel.
• The term Okies was used to describe the residents of Oklahoma during the 1930s. (In this sentence, the word Okies is actually an appositive for the singular subject, "term.")

Plural Compound Nouns

Compound words create special problems when we need to pluralize them. As a general rule, the element within the compound that word that is pluralized will receive the plural -s, but it's not always that simple. Daughters-in-law follows the general rule, but cupfuls does not. See the special section on Compound Nouns and Modifiers or, better yet, a good dictionary, for additional help.

Problem Children

Many careful writers insist that the words data and media are Latin plurals and must, therefore, be used as plural words. The singular Latin forms of these words, however, are seldom used: datum as a single bit of information or medium as a single means of communication. Many authorities nowadays approve sentences like My data is lost. and The media is out to get the President. Even textbooks in computer science are beginning to use "data" as a singular.

Alumni and alumnae remain problematic. The plural of masculine singular alumnus is alumni; the plural of feminine singular alumna is alumnae. In traditional Latin, the masculine plural form, alumni, could include both genders. This does not go over well with some female alums. We note, furthermore, that Vassar College, which now has both, has lists of alumni and alumnae. Hartford College for Women, we assume, has only alumnae. In its publication style manual, Wesleyan University approves of alumni/ae. The genderless graduate and the truncated and informal alum have much to commend them.

Special Cases

With words that end in a consonant and a y, you'll need to change the y to an i and add es.

• more than one baby = babies
  
• more than one gallery = galleries
  (Notice the difference between this and galleys, where the final y is not preceded by a consonant.)
• more than one reality = realities
  This rule does not apply to proper nouns:
• more than one Kennedy = Kennedys

Words that end in o create special problems.

• more than one potato = potatoes
• more than one hero = heroes
  . . . however . . .
• more than one memo = memos
• more than one cello = cellos
  . . . and for words where another vowel comes before the o . . .
• more than one stereo = stereos

Plurals of words that end in -f or -fe usually change the f sound to a v sound and add s or -es.

• more than one knife = knives
• more than one leaf = leaves
• more than one hoof = hooves
• more than one life = lives
• more than one self = selves

There are, however, exceptions:

• more than one dwarf = dwarfs
• more than one roof = roofs

When in doubt, as always, consult a dictionary. Some dictionaries, for instance, will list both wharfs and wharves as acceptable plural forms of wharf. It makes for good arguments. The online version of Merriam-Webster's WWWebster Dictionary should help.

Collective Nouns, Company Names

There are, further, so called collective nouns, which are singular when we think of them as groups and plural when we think of the individuals acting within the whole (which happens sometimes, but not often).

audience band class committee crowd dozen

family flock group heap herd jury

kind lot [the] number public staff team

Thus, if we're talking about eggs, we could say "A dozen is probably not enough." But if we're talking partying with our friends, we could say, "A dozen are coming over this afternoon." The jury delivers its verdict. [But] The jury came in and took their seats. We could say the Tokyo String Quartet is one of the best string ensembles in the world, but we could say the Beatles were some of the most famous singers in history.

Note that "the number" is a singular collective noun. "The number of applicants is steadily increasing." "A number," on the other hand, is a plural form: "There are several students in the lobby. A number are here to see the president."

Collective nouns are count nouns which means they, themselves, can be pluralized: a university has several athletic teams and classes. And the immigrant families kept watch over their herds and flocks.

The word following the phrase one of the (as an object of the preposition of) will always be plural.

• One of the reasons we do this is that it rains a lot in spring.
• One of the students in this room is responsible.

Notice, though, that the verb ("is") agrees with one, which is singular, and not with the object of the preposition, which is always plural.

The names of companies and other organizations are usually regarded as singular, regardless of their ending: "General Motors has announced its fall lineup of new vehicles." Try to avoid the inconsistency that is almost inevitable when you think of corporate entities as a group of individuals: "General Motors has announced their fall lineup of new vehicles." But note that some inconsistency is acceptable in all but the most formal writing: "Ford has announced its breakup with Firestone Tires. Their cars will no longer use tires built by Firestone." Some writers will use a plural verb when a plural construction such as "Associates" is part of the company's title or when the title consists of a series of names: "Upton, Vernon, and Gridley are moving to new law offices next week" or "Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego & Associates have won all their cases this year." Singular verbs and pronouns would be correct in those sentences, also.

The names of sports teams, on the other hand, are treated as plurals, regardless of the form of that name. We would write that "The Yankees have signed a new third baseman" and "The Yankees are a great organization" and that "For two years in a row, the Utah Jazz have attempted to draft a big man."

Plurals and Apostrophes

We use an apostrophe to create plural forms in two limited situations: for pluralized letters of the alphabet and when we are trying to create the plural form of a word that refers to the word itself. Here we also should italicize this "word as word," but not the 's ending that belongs to it. Do not use the apostrophe-s to create the plural of acronyms (pronounceable abbreviations such as LASER and IRA and URL*) and other abbreviations. (A possible exception to this last rule is an acronym that ends in "S": "We filed four NOS's in that folder.")

• Jeffrey got four A's on his last report card.
• Towanda learned very quickly to mind her p's and q's.
• You have fifteen and's in that last paragraph.

Notice that we do not use an apostrophe -s to create the plural of a word-in-itself. For instance, we would refer to the "ins and outs" of a mystery, the "yeses and nos" of a vote (NYPL Writer's Guide to Style and Usage), and we assume that Theodore Bernstein knew what he was talking about in his book Dos, Don'ts & Maybes of English Usage. We would also write "The shortstop made two spectacular outs in that inning." But when we refer to a word-as-a-word, we first italicize it — I pointed out the use of the word out in that sentence. — and if necessary, we pluralize it by adding the unitalicized apostrophe -s — "In his essay on prepositions, Jose used an astonishing three dozen out's." This practice is not universally followed, and in newspapers, you would find our example sentence written without italics or apostrophe: "You have fifteen ands in that last paragraph."

Notice that we do not use an apostrophe to create plurals in the following:

• The 1890s in Europe are widely regarded as years of social decadence.
• I have prepared 1099s for the entire staff.
• Rosa and her brother have identical IQs, and they both have PhDs from Harvard.
• She has over 400 URLs* in her bookmark file.

[Authority for this last paragraph: Keys for Writers: A Brief Handbook by Ann Raimes. Houghton Mifflin: New York. 1996.]

Singular Subjects, Plural Predicates, etc.

We frequently run into a situation in which a singular subject is linked to a plural predicate:

• My favorite breakfast is cereal with fruit, milk, orange juice, and toast.

Sometimes, too, a plural subject can be linked to singular predicate:

• Mistakes in parallelism are the only problem here.

In such situations, remember that the number (singular or plural) of the subject, not the predicate, determines the number of the verb. See the section on Subject-Verb Agreement for further help.

A special situation exists when a subject seems not to agree with its predicate. For instance, when we want each student to see his or her counselor (and each student is assigned to only one counselor), but we want to avoid that "his or her" construction by pluralizing, do we say "Students must see their counselors" or "Students must see their counselor"? The singular counselor is necesssary to avoid the implication that students have more than one counselor apiece. Do we say "Many sons dislike their father or fathers"? We don't mean to suggest that the sons have more than one father, so we use the singular father. Theodore Bernstein, in Dos, Don'ts and Maybes of English Usage, says that "Idiomatically the noun applying to more than one person remains in the singular when (a) it represents a quality or thing possessed in common ("The audience's curiosity was aroused"); or (b) it is an abstraction ("The judges applied their reason to the problem"), or (c) it is a figurative word ("All ten children had a sweet tooth") (203). Sometimes good sense will have to guide you. We might want to say "Puzzled, the children scratched their head" to avoid the image of multi-headed children, but "The audience rose to their foot" is plainly ridiculous and about to tip over.

In "The boys moved their car/cars," the plural would indicate that each boy owned a car, the singular that the boys (together) owned one car (which is quite possible). It is also possible that each boy owned more than one car. Be prepared for such situations, and consider carefully the implications of using either the singular or the plural. You might have to avoid the problem by going the opposite direction of pluralizing: moving things to the singular and talking about what each boy did.

[*The jury still seems to be out on whether URL (acronym for Uniform [or Universal] Resource Locator), the address of a website on the World Wide Web, should be pronounced like the name of your Uncle Earl or as a series of letters: U*R*L. In either case, though, the plural would be spelled URLs.]

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