Faces is the name of the new restaurant downtown.When a noun names the title of something or is a word being used as a word, it is singular whether the word takes a singular form or not. The glasses have slipped down his nose again.(Nowadays you will sometimes see this word as a singular "pant" especially in clothing ads, but most writers would regard that as an affectation.) Fifty percent of the students have voted already.Īnd another handful of nouns might seem to be singular in nature but take a plural form and always use a plural verb:.One-half of the faculty have doctorates.One-half of the faculty is retiring this summer.Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money.Numerical expressions are usually singular, but can be plural if the individuals within a numerical group are acting individually: ("Economics" can sometimes be a plural concept, as in "The economics of the situation demand that. Economics/mathematics/statistics is said to be difficult.More than one base in the game of baseball is bases, but more than one basis for an argument, say, is also bases, and then we pronounce the word bas ease.Ī handful of nouns appear to be plural in form but take a singular verb: *Note the pronunciation of this word, crises: the second syllable sounds like ease. more than one appendix = appendices ( appendixes is acceptable).more than one index = indices ( indexes is acceptable).more than one cactus = cacti ( cactuses is acceptable).Plurals formed in this way are sometimes called mutated (or mutating) plurals.Īnd, finally, there are nouns that maintain their Latin or Greek form in the plural.
There are several nouns that have irregular plural forms. "Busses" is the plural, of course, for "buss," a seldom used word for "kiss." Note that some dictionaries list "busses" as an acceptable plural for "bus." Presumably, this is because the plural "buses" looks like it ought to rhyme with the plural of "fuse," which is "fuses." "Buses" is still listed as the preferable plural form. Words that end in -ch, x, s or s-like sounds, however, will require an -es for the plural: The plural form of most nouns is created simply by adding the letter s. An exercise in categorizing count- and non-count nouns.In love with nouns? We also have sections on
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