Variant is considered more correct

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

9. There are some nouns in English which have double plural forms. These forms differ in meaning:

ü brother: 1) brothers (sons of one mother)

2) brethren (members of one community)

ü penny: 1) pennies (some coins)

2) pence (amount of pennies in value; an individual

coin: six pence, ten pence)

e.g. He gave some pennies of six-pence value.

ü staff: 1) staffs (military staffs (штаб), staffs (штат) of an

an institution)

2) staves (sticks)

ü cloth: 1) cloths (kinds of cloth)

2) clothes (articles of dress)

Irregular formation of plural form.

For historical reasons certain nouns in English form their plural differently.

1. Seven nouns distinguish plural from singular by vowel change:

Man – men tooth – teeth goose–geese

Woman – women foot – feet mouse-mice

Louse-lice

2. Two nouns have – en to mark the plural:

Ox – oxen child – children

3. Some nouns have identical singular and plural forms:

A. sheep – sheep (овца/ы)

Swine – swine (свинья/и)

Deer - deer (олень/и)

Grouse- grouse (куропатка/и)

Craft - craft (судно/судна)

☼ Note: There are some animal names that have two plural forms:

Fish – fish/fishes pike (щука) – pike/pikes

Trout (форель) – trout/trouts carp – carp/carps

Salmon (лосось) – salmon/salmons

Plaice (камбала) – plaice/plaices

Mackerel (макрель) – mackerel/mackerels

!!! Zero ending of these nouns is used to denote hunting quarries:

E.g. My father caught some fish.

We fried five salmon.

!!! The regular plural of these nouns is used to denote different individuals, species, kinds of animal, especially fish with the same name or insects or other small animals which cause disease or damage:

e.g. There are so many fishes in this fishmonger’s. (colloquial)

There are three greenflies on my hand.

Two large hookworms were found in his stomach.

There were two quails for sale.

b. identical singular and plural forms are also typical of nationality nouns in – ese, -ss: Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Swiss.

c. two nouns borrowed from Latin and one from French also have identical singular and plural form:

series - series (ряд, серия)

species - species (вид, порода, род)

corps - corps (корпус, род войск)

d. nouns, indicating numbers, such as:

pair, couple, dozen, score (два десятка)

stone (мера веса: 14 англ. фунтов=6,35 кг.)

head (голова – поголовье скота)

have the identical form for singular and plural when they are preceded by a numeral:

two dozen of socks, five dozen of eggs, two pair of gloves

!!! But when they have no number as predeterminer they take the usual plural form:

dozens of times, to go in pairs.

e. the noun foot (measure of length) is feet in the plural. The plural foot is used when followed by a number indicating inches:

e.g. He was five feet high.

He was five foot ten high.

4. A number of foreign nouns (borrowings) have their original plural endings:

Borrowings of Latin origin

Singular Plural

- is [is] -es [i:z]

basis bases

crisis crises

analysis analyses

thesis theses

parenthesis parentheses

axis axes