One foot, two feet, one moose, two…?

One foot, two feet, one moose, two…?

As a child, one of my wishes was to learn languages. The unfortunate part is that I do not possess any special talent in this direction. Add to that my work-shy attitude and no wonder, it has remained what it was- a mere wish. Yet because I work in English and Hindi, I am sometimes forced to add to whatever little I know of them.

First computer mouse invented
by Douglas Engelbart 

It was on one such occasion recently that I had to look for the plural of a word- the computer mouse: is it mouse, mouses or mice?  

After a lot of time spent sliding the singular mouse to look for answers, what did I learn?

Although https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2006-02-15-0602150192-story.html wrote

In the first 15 years or so of its mainstream life, the computer mouse has had an uncertain plural, word watchers say. But in the current issue of English Today, linguist Alan Kaye argues that "computer mouses" is starting to win out…

Yet Wikipedia, at places, mentions the plural as ‘mice’. 

For me, the matter is still pending a decision. But in the process, I read so much about the mouse that had it not been for my poor retaining power, I would easily have written at least a three-post series on these choohe (mice). My fear, however, was that it would not be fair to you all so soon after my long Tawang series.

Meanwhile, one of the things which caught my attention was that like so many other factors, plurals in English language also have the power to flummox people. And blessed with wavering levels of concentration, I started reading about them.

The common understanding is that adding an ‘s’ makes the word plural, e.g., two dogs (a dog), or ‘es’ two buses (one bus). How do you decide which of the two to follow?  

The third rule says change the last letter ‘y’ to ‘ies’ e.g., in story-stories, berry-berries, but not in storey which is storeys.

Yet the change from one hoof/knife/wife to two hooves/knives/wives is due to pronunciation. An ‘f’ coming in a word is easier to pronounce as v.

How do you explain children (one child), feet (one foot) and men (one man)? They are derived from or influenced by German and slowly mutated to their modern plurals, say the linguists.

Invariable nouns, however, do not change form when mentioned in plural, e.g., cattle, news, sheep.

We know quantitative nouns e.g., hundred, thousand, lakh, crore get an ‘s’ in the end only when they are used to begin a sentence, e.g., Thousands of devotees visited the gurudwara on Gurpurab.

This is English and there are always exceptions to rules. Nouns ending with an ‘s’ stay as they are, even for plural. Examples? Economics is (not ‘are’) easier than linguistics.

Collective nouns like crowd, government, mob, team, society, committee are considered as singular.  The society does not allow this.

If this is not confusing, let me take the opposite case of nouns where, based on how they are being used, the word is treated as a plural.

One aircraft is being repaired. Two aircraft are being repaired.

People may say that there are five or even eight rules to change singular nouns to plural ones. But this has already gone beyond that number. Would you now side with the supporters of conspiracy theory who say the whole system of deciding plurals is to make English tough for the non-English?

It is not just English. Has anyone tried learning the cases in German or Italian? I am grateful to Neeru Sehgal, an older schoolmate/friend, who spent a whole Sunday morning explaining to me the lakaar and vibhakti in Sanskrit, driving out the fear of the language from my mind. 

Meanwhile, even if MSWord underlines them in red, Reader’s Digest tells us the following plurals are the correct ones.

Singular-   plural

Beef -       beaves

Opus -      opera

Sphinx-    sphinges

Biceps-    Bicepses

Cul de sac- Culs de sac

Niece/nephew - niblings (becomes gender-neutral)

Attorney general - attorneys general like mothers in law, directors general

Lasagna - lasagne

Prius – prii.  (Toyota officially announced this new word after a 2011 vote of more than 1.8 million people.)

Spaghetto – spaghetti

The plural of octopus, however, is… octopuses, not octopi. ‘Octopi’ is the word plural in Latin; but octopus is a Greek word. The Greek plural of octopus would be Octopodes. But according to linguists, when a word is added to the English lexicon, it also gets an English inflection. Hence, octopus become ‘octopuses’. I trust RD.

Going through lists of plurals, I found a poem written by an unknown author, the relevant part of which I am sharing with you.

The English lesson

We'll begin with box, and the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?

The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.

I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
If I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth, and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

If the singular is this and the plural is these,
Why shouldn't the plural of kiss be named kese?

Then one may be that, and three may be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose;

We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.

The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim!

So our English, I think, you all will agree,
Is the craziest language you ever did see.

A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk it when I was five,
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five!

There is also a version II of the poem.

Now if mouse in the plural should be, and is, mice,
Then house in the plural, of course, should be hice,
And grouse should be grice and spouse should be spice
And by the same token should blouse become blice.

And consider the goose with its plural of geese;
Then a double caboose should be called a cabeese,
And noose should be neese and moose should be meese
And if mama’s papoose should be twins, it’s papeese.

Then if one thing is that, while some more is called those,
Then more than one hat, I assume, would be hose,
And gnat would be gnose and pat would be pose,
And likewise the plural of rat would be rose.

I am sure you knew most of these, a couple you would pick up and the rest, naah, may never be used in this lifetime. So why worry? Enjoy the weekend!

                                                                                              -Anupama S Mani