Making Plurals
A plural means "More than one".
There are a few rules to making plurals. In class we filled the whiteboard with words and their plurals. We found four basic rules.
1. In most words, all you do is add an "S" to the word to make it plural.
ball balls
Key keys
2. In many words that end with Y, you change the Y to I, and add ES.
discovery discoveries
sky Skies
3. In many words that end with S, SS, X, Z, CH, or SH, you add es
watch watches box boxes
glass glasses
4. In most words that end in F or FE, change the F to V and add S or SE.
Calf calves
wolf wolves
There are some words such as "moose", or "deer" that do not change at all when they refer to "More than one". Other words change into a completely different word. "Mouse" changes to "mice", and "child" becomes "children".
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Did you know |
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The word "plural" comes from the Latin pluralis meaning "more than one." It comes into English from the old French plurel. Related words are nonplussed, pluperfect, plus and surplus. |
Links
There are not as many links to spelling rules about creating plurals, but I did manage to find a couple.
Joanne Crump's English Grammar pages - Plurals
A page with practice exercises about forming Plurals
