Plural Forms of Nouns
Regular Nouns
Most nouns simply add an "s" to become plural.
- Dog-dogs, finger-fingers, car-cars
Words ending in a "ch" or "s" sound, usually add "es" to become plural.
- Box-boxes, bus-buses, church-churches
Words ending in "f" or "fe" usually change the ending to "ves" to become plural.
- Life-lives, leaf-leaves, wolf-wolves
This rule, however, has many exceptions. The plural of "safe" is "safes," because "saves" means something else. Other exceptions exist for no obvious reason.
- Roof-roofs, dwarf-dwarfs
Words that end in "o" are pluralized by adding either "s" or "es." If there is a vowel before the "o", just add an "s."
- Radio-radios, video-videos
If there is a consonant before the "s", there is no consistent rule.
- Potato-potatoes, hero-heroes
But...
- Photo-photos, memo-memos
Words ending in "y" often form plurals by changing the "y" to "i" and adding "es."
- Cry-cries, fly-flies, party-parties
People's names are an exception to most of these rules. Chuck Berry and his family would be known as the Berrys.
Irregular Nouns
Some words don't change when they become plural. This most often applies to animals.
- Moose-moose, deer-deer, fish-fish
Some words ending in "us" form plurals by changing the "us" to "i."
- Thesaurus-thesauri, syllabus-syllabi, focus-foci
Some words ending in "x" are pluralized with the ending "ices."
- Index-indices, appendix-appendices
A few words ending in "is" form plurals by changing "is" to "es."
- Crisis-crises, thesis-theses
There are many exceptions which seem to follow no pattern at all. Here are some examples:
- Foot-feet
- tooth-teeth
- child-children
- person-people
- man-men
- woman-women
Apostrophes
Don't use apostrophes to create plurals unless you have a good reason. Use apostrophes if you are pluralizing letters.
- He played for the Oakland A’s.
- I got B's and C's on my report card.
Apostrophes can be used to pluralize abbreviations and acronyms, only if the abbreviation could cause confusion. Acronyms like GA or BU or SS should be pluralized with an apostrophe s because GAs and BUs look like words, and SSs just looks confusing. However, DVDs, CDs, and PhDs are not likely to be a source of confusion. They do not need apostrophes.
Unusual Singular Forms
A few words are almost always seen in their plural form, so much so that many people do not realize that these words are plural.
Plural Form Singular Form
dice die
data datum (a single piece of information)
media medium
criteria criterion
