{"id":227,"date":"2010-07-25T22:00:14","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T22:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/?p=227"},"modified":"2010-07-29T14:54:30","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T14:54:30","slug":"how-to-know-the-plural-form-of-a-noun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/how-to-know-the-plural-form-of-a-noun\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Know the Plural Form of a Noun (If It Has One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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levitra<\/a>cialis online<\/a>Zappos<\/a><\/div>\n

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You wanted an easy answer, didn’t you!\u00a0 Sorry, I can’t give it to you!\u00a0 You’re learning English!<\/h3>\n

Let’s say you are learning a new word.\u00a0 A new noun.\u00a0 The reasonable thing to assume that it is a regular noun, and that it is a countable noun and has a plural form.\u00a0 As a rule, the plural form of a noun is constructed by adding an ~s or ~es to the singular form.<\/p>\n

In most cases, that would work. But that’s where you may get into Grammar Trouble-ville.<\/p>\n

So let’s do some research.\u00a0 Let’s\u00a0 look up a new word in a dictionary.<\/p>\n

I looked up the word “man<\/strong>”\u00a0 in my beloved little Webster’s Dictionary that I’ve had since I was a child.\u00a0 It indicated man<\/strong>. n<\/em>.; pl<\/em>. MEN<\/strong> .\u00a0 I next turned to my Longman Dictionary of American English<\/span> that I’ve just taken off of the shelf for this purpose.\u00a0 Right after the main word “man<\/strong>” was a note indicating its part of speech:\u00a0 “n<\/strong><\/em>”\u00a0 (for noun) and then “men”<\/strong>. So we’re good in both dictionaries, right from the beginning.\u00a0 We learn the plural form for the noun man<\/strong> is men<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Now I tried this on an online Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English<\/a><\/span> .\u00a0 Go ahead; click on “man 1 noun”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Right here it says “man<\/strong><\/span> plural <\/em>men<\/strong>“. That’s it! This is a countable noun that has an irregular plural form.<\/p>\n

I next tried the common (singular) noun “person<\/strong>“.\u00a0 My little Webster’s Dictionary didn’t say anything about its plural form (“people”).\u00a0 Might this mean that the plural of person<\/strong> is persons<\/strong>?\u00a0 My Longman Dictionary of American English<\/span> (very helpful for learners of English) had, after all the definitions, at the very end of the entry, a “USAGE” note:\u00a0 “The usual plural of person<\/strong> is people<\/strong>.”\u00a0 You see, there is<\/em> a plural form of person: persons<\/strong>, but its meaning is not our standard one:\u00a0 We would not say “I saw many persons in the park.”\u00a0 The form persons<\/strong> tends to be legalistic and mathematical.<\/p>\n

I tried Longman’s\u00a0 online dictionary<\/a><\/span>:\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>
\nThis tells us “p<\/strong>erson<\/strong><\/span> [countable<\/span><\/strong>].\u00a0 Now it gives us the first “1<\/span><\/strong>” common definition:\u00a0 MALE PERSON [countable}. So now we know we can say “There were many people looking for work.”<\/p>\n

Let’s scroll down a little further, to definition #4:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n“4 <\/span>plural <\/em>persons”<\/strong> And we see this has a different meaning and use, as I wrote above, a more formal use.<\/p>\n

So let’s practice and look up the word “woman<\/strong>“:\u00a0 We find woman <\/strong>n<\/em> women<\/strong>. That tells us the singular is woman<\/strong>, the word is a noun<\/strong>, and the plural is women<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As a rule, the plural form of a noun is constructed by adding an ~s or ~es to the singular form.<\/p>\n

How about working this backwards !<\/p>\n

Let’s look up “women<\/strong>“. In a hard copy dictionary, we see nothing there!\u00a0 Dictionaries will not list the plural form of a word in its listings. <\/strong><\/span>So if this occurs to you, then you will have to figure out what its singular form is.\u00a0 Either put on your thinking cap, or consult a grammar book.<\/p>\n

Or look online<\/a>: and there it is!<\/p>\n

Now suppose you look up the word “change<\/strong>” – referring to the coins such as quarters, dimes, nickles and pennies.\u00a0 The next question here is – how do you even know IF a word has a plural form? <\/span><\/strong>We have many words in English that do not have a plural form! Nouns such as these are referred to in a number of ways: non-count nouns<\/em>, non-countable nouns<\/em>, uncountable nouns<\/em>.\u00a0 Whatever you call then, you will need to know if<\/em> the noun even has a plural form.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Stay tuned for our next blog post: How to Know if a Noun is Countable or Noncountable!<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

levitracialis onlineZappos You wanted an easy answer, didn’t you!\u00a0 Sorry, I can’t give it to you!\u00a0 You’re learning English! Let’s say you are learning a new word.\u00a0 A new noun.\u00a0 The reasonable thing to assume that it is a regular noun, and that it is a countable noun and has a plural form.\u00a0 As a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,6],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","category-english-vocabulary","category-writing","tag-using-the-dictionary","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eslhelpdesk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}