Blog about English
Regular and irregular plural forms, spelling rules and usage.
English countable nouns normally have singular and plural forms.
The singular form refers to one person or thing, while the plural form refers to two or more.
Most countable nouns form the plural by adding -s.
Examples include book → books, car → cars and teacher → teachers.
Add -es to nouns ending in -s, -ss, -sh, -ch, -x and -z.
Examples include bus → buses, box → boxes, church → churches and dish → dishes.
Change y to i and add -es after a consonant.
Examples include city → cities, baby → babies and country → countries.
Keep the y and simply add -s.
Examples include boy → boys, key → keys and toy → toys.
Some nouns ending in -f or -fe form the plural by changing to -ves.
Examples include leaf → leaves, knife → knives and wife → wives. Many nouns simply add -s, such as roof → roofs and chief → chiefs.
Nouns ending in -o may form the plural with either -s or -es.
Examples include potato → potatoes, tomato → tomatoes, photo → photos and piano → pianos.
Letters, numbers and symbols may take plural endings in writing.
Examples include three As, two 7s and several # symbols, depending on the writing style.
Abbreviations usually form the plural by adding -s.
Examples include DVDs, NGOs, URLs and MPs.
Some borrowed nouns retain their original plural forms, while others follow regular English plural rules.
Examples include formulas/formulae, indexes/indices and cactuses/cacti.
The plural ending -s has three pronunciations: /s/, /z/ and /ɪz/.
Its pronunciation depends on the final sound of the singular noun rather than its spelling.
The plural marker is usually added to the main noun in a compound.
Examples include mothers-in-law, passers-by and toothbrushes.
Some nouns have identical singular and plural forms.
Examples include sheep, deer, aircraft and series. These are covered in more detail under Irregular Plurals.
Plural nouns normally take plural verbs.
Subject-verb agreement depends on whether the noun is grammatically singular or plural.
Apply regular plural rules only where appropriate.
Common errors include childs, womans, furnitures and informations. Always check whether a noun is regular, irregular or uncountable.