Compound Nouns

PLURAL OF NOUNS

Normally nouns form the plural by adding -s to the singular form

Regular Nouns

Count	Non-count
singular	book	water
	shop	money
	dog	youth
plural	books	weather
	shops dogs	sugar

Other Plural Forms

Forms of plural	Patterns
-es	box - boxes, class - classes, dish — dishes; but: epoch - epochs, monarch - monarchs, stomach — stomachs
-es, -s	family - families, factory - factories, city — cities; but: day — days, key - keys, play — plays, toy — toys
es -s -s or-es	hero — heroes, negro - negroes, potato — potatoes; piano — pianos, radio - radios, photo — photos; cargo — cargos or cargoes, volcano — volcanos or volcanoes
-s	knife - knives, life - lives, shelf — shelves; but: gulf — gulfs, belief — beliefs, chief — chiefs, roof — roofs, safe - safes

Irregular Nouns

Forms of plural	Patterns
change of the root vowel no changes -en	man — men, goose - geese, foot — feet, woman — women, mouse — mice, tooth — teeth, deer — deer, fish — fish, sheep — sheep, series — series, swine - swine child — children, ox - oxen, brother — brethren

Compound Nouns

Patterns	Types of nouns
housewife – housewives, onlooker – onlookers, postman – postmen brother-in-law – brothers-in-law, hotel-manager – hotel-managers passer-by – passers-by milk-tooth – milk-teeth man-servant – men-servants woman-doctor – women-doctors	non-hyphenated: the last word is used in the plural   hyphenated: the main meaning­ful word is used in the plural hyphenated: if the first word of the compound is manor wo­man,both words are used in the plural

NOTES

1. Some nouns from Latin and Greek retain their original plural form: analysis — analyses, crisis — crises, criterion — criteria, datum — data, phenomenon — phenomena, radius — radii, stimulus — stimuli, medium — media etc.

 

2. Uncountable nouns have no plural. The following nouns are usually uncountable in English but often countable in other languages: accom­modation, advice, baggage, behaviour, bread, chaos, furniture, infor­mation, luggage, news, permission, progress, scenery, traffic, work, trouble, weather, travel.

Many nouns can be used as countable and as uncountable nouns. Usually there is a difference in meaning:

paper I bought a paper. (= a newspaper - countable) I bought some paper. (= material for writing on — uncountable)

 

3. Some nouns are used only in the plural: glasses/spectacles, jeans, shorts, scissors, pyjamas, leggings, tights, trousers. We can also use a pair of... with these words: I need some new jeans. Or: 1 need a new pair of jeans.

 

4. These nouns end in -s but they are not usually plural: mathe­matics, physics, economics, athletics, news.

What time is the news on television? Mathematics is my favourite subject.

These nouns end in -s and can be singular or plural:

means a means of transport many means of transport