What Is A Plural

[roadman]

what is a plural

[jno]

I think it just used to function as a singular and so did cherise, lady-j. I don't know if the plurals were peases and cherises, or if they just stayed the same, like sheep.

[bhg481]

phenomenon/phenomena is the one that lots of people get wrong.

[jno]

I'm all for abandoning Greek and Latin plurals, bhg, I think they're just kept so old Etonians can swank. I think stadiums and syllabuses are fine though I know some people insist on stadia and syllabi, and I'd be happy with criterions too.

[bhg481]

jno - so datums instead of data?

[jno]

I think data and agenda have already made themselves English words. Data's some kind of collective noun as the concept of a singular datum barely exists. But agenda is a proper singular word with agendas as its plural.

[bhg481]

I, mischievously (and wrongly) use apprenti as the plural of apprentice. Apprentices sounds very clumsy to me.

[DTCwordfan]

Consciousness is singular for which there is no plural. (Erwin Scrodinger).

Universe may be another example but now debatable.

Then there are those who are fascinated by the use of the first-person plural talking about sports.

There is of course, 'pleural' - the plural of which is a shorter word in 'pleura'.

[jno]

sounds good to me. Keep using it, to alarm pedants.

[bhg481]

jno - I agree with data. In my early days as a scientist I used to manipulate a sentence so that I could use "data" but in later days I gave up as it acquired its singular use became accepted.

[roadman]

wow hello everybody the auntPG of the group asked me if english is my first language the answer is yes it is but i did fail it at school

[bhg481]

Feel free to correct my last post by removing "it acquired".

[ToraToraTora]

sanmac: "TTT, the singular of dice is die. I think you meant something like sheep is both singular and plural. " - no I meant that many say dice when there is only one, when they should say die.

[ToraToraTora]

nescio: https://www.baresports.com/blog/octopi-vs-octopuses-which-do-you-prefer/?v=79cba1185463

[Jackdaw33]

Although agenda has

[Jackdaw33]

Whoops! Try again

Although agenda has become a singular word it is in fact a plural, meaning things to be done. The singular is agendum, meaning one thing to be done.