Word Play: Perplexing plurals and twisted rules

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, May 9th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

We’re just a few days away from our annual two-week journalism intensive course for college students and recent graduates held again this year at Dordt University in Sioux Center, Iowa. We’d love to invite you to pray for these 32 students, and all the WORLD staff and instructors that will be building into their lives later this month, thank you.

EICHER: Before we wrap up our program today, one more opportunity to let you know about: The Cordell Prize, speaking of young journalists. It’s a writing competition for journalists between the ages of 18 to 29, those who are particularly interested in reporting on the angle of faith and suffering.

We’re looking for published stories from the last year that highlight individuals overcoming adversity while remaining steadfast in their Christian faith. Publication can be from a student or local newspaper, or online publication.

The piece needs to be at least 2,000 words and written in AP style.

There are generous monetary prizes for the top entries from $500 to $2,500.

Cordell Prize submissions due by the end of this month, May 30th. Visit wng.org/cordell for more information.

We’re waiting for your entries.

BROWN: Finally today, the perils of plurals on Word Play with George Grant.

GEORGE GRANT: English has become the world’s default lingua franca, the international standard for commerce and communication, spoken in more than a hundred countries around the globe. Even so, it remains one of the most difficult languages to master.

English has a vast vocabulary of more than a million words including a whole host of peculiar idioms, phrasal verbs, slang terms, and variable intonation and pronunciation patterns. Its grammar is exceedingly complex and riddled with irregularities, oddities, and exceptions. There are homonyms: words that are spelled the same and sound the same but have different meanings. There are homophones: words that sound the same but have different meanings and different spellings. There are multinyms: words that sound the same but have more than two different meanings and spellings.

Part of the reason for this is that English is a polyglot language. It has borrowed words, phrases, and structures from multiple languages, ancient and modern: Greek and Latin of course, but with heavy doses of French, German and Norse. And then, there are all the old holdover words from Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Old English, and Middle English.

Sorting out singulars and plurals in English can be particularly confusing. Most singular nouns can be made plural simply by adding an S at the end of the word: pens and pencils, papers and journals. But there is a dizzying array of complex exceptions to that simple rule.

The plural of mouse is mice. The plural of goose is geese. The plural of louse is lice. But the plural of moose is not meese. We have man and woman but not mans and womans. We have foot and tooth but not foots and tooths.

Some words have identical singulars and plurals: sheep, deer, jeans, chalk, swine, police, chassis, species, and pajamas.

But there are innumerable other plurals that are even more complicated. Multiple data points are datum. Multiple agenda items are agendum. The plural of criterion is criteria. The plural of medium is media. Several stratum are strata while more than one appendix are appendices and more than one axis are axes. The plurals of cactus, focus, and radius are cacti, foci, and radii while the plurals of hoof, wife, and knife are hooves, wives, and knives. Awkward plurals one and all.

Is this as perplexing a phenomenon for you as it is for me? Imagine trying to learn English as a second language. Then, does it become something more like a perplexitude of phenomena? Well, my hypothesis is “yes it is.” But perhaps it might be better to say that my hypotheses are “yes they are.”

I’m George Grant.

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