nouns - Irregular plurality situations in English


Why do some nouns in English not take the plurality suffix in the plural form? Could you give me a list of plural nouns which don't take "-(e)s" suffix? For example, I know about "fish" and "sheep".



Answer



This question is actually quite broad. Irregular plural forms can arise for a variety of reasons. Wikipedia has a huge section on the subject, with six subsections: "Nouns with identical singular and plural", "Irregular -(e)n plurals", "Ablaut plurals", "Irregular plurals from Latin and Greek", "Irregular plurals from other languages", and "Words better known in the plural".


Wiktionary has a list of English nouns with irregular plurals.


Lastly, there are nouns that (depending on context) can be countable and uncountable, e.g. water, cheese, or email.


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