The Plural

1.Regular Plurals of  Nouns

• Only countable  nouns take a plural mark

• The Plural mark is generally (s)

book - books , bird – birds

tool - tools , farm - farms

• However for nouns which end in –s , -sh , -ch , -x , -o , the plural mark is (es)

bus – buses , box – boxes

match – matches , dish – dishes

potato – potatoes

• some exceptions : piano – pianos , casino – casinos , radio – radios , studio – studios ….etc

• For nouns which end in y  , the plural mark is ( ies)

city – cities , baby – babies

story – stories , entry – entries

when –y is preceded by vowel , the plural mark is (s)

day – days , boy – boys  , toy – toys

• For nouns which end in –f or –fe , the plural mark is (-ves)

self – selves , wife – wives , wolf – wolves

leaf – leaves , thief – thieves

• some exceptions : belief – believes , chief – chiefs , proof – proofs

• Words from Latin and Greek word origins keep their plural in the original language

basis – bases , axis – axes , analysis – analyses

crisis – crises , thesis – theses , criterion – criteria

spectrum – spectra , stimulus – stimuli , phenomenon – phenomena

2.Irregular Plurals of Nouns

• The plural is not always by adding  s , there certain nouns don’t use (s) for the plural :

man – men , woman – women , ox – oxen , foot – feet , child – children

tooth – teeth , goose – geese , mouse – mice , louse – lice

• Certain words have the same form in singular and in plural

Sheep , deer , fish , salmon , aircraft , series , species

3.Words ending by –s

• There are some words ending by –s ( not s of plural form) likes names of games , diseases .etc  are uncountable and there are followed by singular verb

News , mathematics , billiards , the united states , measles

The news is good

Billiards is my best game