Singular & plural words

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Guest

#107664 Sat, 11 Jun 05 03:00 PM

I would disagree with the suggested plural of the word "Spacecraft". Words such as Spacecraft and aircraft are uncountable. You can have 3 airplanes (or aeroplanes if you are Brittish) but you would say "several aircraft/spacecraft".

The plural of beer should indeed be "beer". However, when you here someone say "Two beers please!" what they mean is "two glasses/bottles of beer", thus they are not counting the liquid but rather the container. The same could apply to someone who says "I tried 3 new beers the other day". They mean 3 new styles/brands.

Someone also asked some time ago for the plural of "octopus". I would say that should be "octopi", but some might say "octopuses". Many words ending in -us come from either Classical Greek or Latin. And I have heard that one should add -es to those coming from Greek and in this case say "octopuses", and "octopi" is a case of hypercorrection - I disagree.

Now to the reason I was looking around here - the word "status". A moderator answered, without further explanation that it was "statuses" - sorry, but I have to disagree again. The correct plural of "status" is "status" with a different pronunciation of the final vowel sound. In the singular the final vowel sound is simlar to the a in about while the in the plural it is like the oo in too. That said, I think it sounds a bit pompous to pronounce it that way and if you listen to how "statuses" souns... I think I would just write it and say it the same way!

Guest

Plurals, Pronunciation, Vowels

abbie1948

#107682 Sat, 11 Jun 05 03:39 PM

Webster shows the plural of "status" as "statuses". However, other dictionaries do not give a plural, indicating that "status" is an uncountable noun in Br.E

In terms of the plurals of "foreign" words, Fowler states that once these become established and incorporated into the language they are treated in the same way as Eng. words in respect of their plural form. So, "octupus" can wll have the plural "octopusses" without problem, though "octopi" is equally acceptable. The same applies to words such as "referendum", the plural of which is "referenda" or "referrendums" depending on your preference.

abbie1948

Joined on Thu, Mar 24 2005

England

Senior Member (2,657)

Hope that helps. Abbie

Nouns, Plurals, Uncountable nouns, Countable nouns

pieanne

#107686 Sat, 11 Jun 05 03:41 PM

scenario - scenarii Geeked [8-|]

pieanne

Joined on Thu, Jan 20 2005

South of France ...But I'm Belgian!

Veteran Member (7,512)

I'm glad to help, but I'm not a native! And please excuse my typos...

Plurals

LanguageLover

#107717 Sat, 11 Jun 05 04:48 PM

Dear Guest,
And I think everyone agrees on that sence of countable beer that you mentioned. But beer as liquid is uncountable. If you have a close look at your dictionaries, you would see that there are lots of other nouns which carry both countable and uncountable scences. And remember something, do not be too strict on talking about any languages. Languages are always in change, and sometimes either your books are not up-to-date, or the authors are conservative or prescriptionists!