Give me some plurals

Hello there! 
I'm preparing some students to pass their public exams for them to become teachers of English and right now one of my tasks is to explain the topic of the expression of quantity to them. Within the contents of this theme, we find plurals and although plurals in English are not particularly troublesome, there are some irregular plurals that will make you sweat (fortunately, most of them are not widely used). This is why I devoted this entry to another English quirk, plurals and, more precisely, irregular plurals. Let's just get started:

Regular plurals

·     In English, plural is inflected by adding –s to a given noun. Adjectives do not have plural form in English

One cat à Two cats

However, there are some spelling variants and exceptions to this rule.

a) After sibilant consonants, -es is added. Sibilant consonants are represented by the spellings : <s>, <ss>, <z>, <x>, <sh>, <ch>

Gasà gases

Glassàglasses

Buzz à buzzes

Boxà Boxes

Watch à Watches

Dish à dishes

b) After nouns ending in –o, normally –es is added. However, there are some exceptions.

Potatoà Potatoes

Tomato à Tomatoes

Volcanoà Volcanoes

*Radio à Radios

*Piano à Pianos

* Buffalo à Buffalos / Buffaloes

c) After nouns ending in –f/-fe, the f is changed into v, and then –es is added (if it doesn’t already finish in –e). There are some exceptions:

Knife à Knives

Leaf à Leaves

*Dwarfà Dwarves / dwarfs

* Belief à Beliefs

*Roof à Roofs

d) When a verb finishes in –y preceded by a consonant, the <y> is changed into <i> and then –es is added

Studyàstudies

Fly à flies

* If the –y is preceded by a vowel, it doesn’t change and only –s is added

Boy à Boys

e) The final consonant is doubled in a few plurals

Quiz à quizzes

Irregular plurals

 

a) Plurals formed by mutation

Tooth à teeth

Foot à feet

Goose à geese

Man à men

Woman à women

Dormouse à dormice

Mouse à mice

Louse à lice

Die à dice

Penny à pence

Person à people

b) The –en plural from Old English

Brother à brethren

Child à children

Ox à oxen

c) Zero plurals

Fish à fish

Trout à trout

Sheep à sheep

Salmon à salmon

Cod à cod

Deer à deer

Reindeer à reindeer

Aircraft à aircraft

Means à means

News à news

Series à series

*Words ending in –ics

Aerobics à aerobics

Irregular plurals from other languages

Loanwords have left their print on the English language.

a) Latin

- Masculines finished in –us make the plural in –i :Alumnus à alumni; fungus à fungi;  stimulus à stimuli

- Feminines finished in –a make the plural in –ae : Alumna à alumnae; antennaà antennae; algaà algae;

- Neutral nouns finished in –um make the plural in –a : Curriculum à curricula; conundrum à conundra; medium à media

- Neutral nouns finished in –us make the plural in –ora : Corpus à Corpora; genusà genera

- Nouns finished in –ex make the  plural in –ices : Indexà indices; matrix—Z matrices

*Sometimes, there are two variants: mediums (the person who speaks to the spirits); media (the press and other means of communication); indexes/ indices; matrixes/matrices.

b) Greek

- Words finished in –is make the plural in –es: hypothesis à hypotheses; thesisà theses; crisisà crises

- Neutral words finished in –on make the plural in –a : Criterionà criteria; phenomenon à phenomena

- Other irregular plurals from Greek: Enigma à enigmas / enigmata

                                                              Schema à schemas / schemata

c) French

- Words finished in –s are invariable:  pas à pas; corps à corps

- Some words finished in –au make the plural with x: plateau à plateau; beauà beaux. Sometimes is not quite clear: bureaus / bureaux

d) Italian

- Some words ending in –o make the plural in –i : tempoà tempi;   libretto à libretti (librettos), with some exceptions : piano à pianos

e) Hebrew

- Some words are pluralized by adding –im: kibbutz à kibbutzim

Well, you can't deny that plurals in English are, at least, interesting, don't you think?
See you around