Irregular Plurals can be found everywhere, like in the name of a famous kid’s book by Dr. Seuss One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. It’s one of the first books I read and the title contains an important tip regarding irregular plurals:
Be very careful when putting an S on the end of a noun!
Not all plurals end up having an S. Unfortunately. However, we have some solutions for you, that should help. So let’s have a closer look.
We often hear phrases like “I caught two fishes yesterday,” or “I have two child” in class, but as you have probably worked out, the correct version, following Dr Seuss’ lead, is “I caught two fish yesterday”. The video tip also names some other common irregular plurals:
Typical Irregular Plurals
| Singular | Plural | |
| sheep | sheep | |
| person | people* | |
| child | children | |
| woman | women |
*You can say one people and two peoples but the meaning is different from the regular way we talk about one person/two people. You use it when talking about the members of a particular nation, community, or ethnic group, e.g.
The native peoples of Australia (the different groups themselves; not the individuals).
Two of our favourite irregular plurals:
The last tip in the irregular plurals video addresses two very problematic words regarding the S at the end. In my experience, most people need to take the S from information and put it on headquarters ???? You may want to check this out. It’s a very common mistake you can easily avoid.
information (never an S at the end)
headquarters (always an S at the end)
That means you say “It’s not much information” and “Our headquarters are in Munich”.
So, now you that know it’s not always as easy as popping an S on the end of the noun, we have put a list below to help you with finding more irregular plurals (This list is also found in our Much and Many blog). Take a close look at it, find the new ones important for you, and start memorising them. A simple tip is to write out the important ones on post-it notes, stick them somewhere you can see them very often, and within a week or two you’ll never forget them.
Irregular Plurals (a quick reminder that all the below plurals would be used with many)
Irregular plurals that change vowels
Singular Plural
foot feet
tooth teeth
goose geese
man men
woman women
Irregular plurals that change significantly
Singular Plural
mouse mice
die dice
ox oxen
child children
person people
Irregular plurals that don’t change
Singular/Plural
sheep
moose
fish
deer
trout
shrimp
aircraft
spacecraft
Irregular plurals ending in -us
Singular Plural
fungus fungi
alumnus alumni
radius radii
nucleus nuclei
cactus cacti
Irregular plurals ending in -is
Singular Plural
crisis crises
axis axes
analysis analyses
thesis theses
Note that the pronunciation of the plural is CRY-sees
Irregular plurals ending in -on
Singular Plural
phenomenon phenomena
criterion criteria
Irregular plurals ending in -um
Singular Plural
bacterium bacteria
datum data
memorandum memoranda
stratum strata
curriculum curricula
With these words, you have probably heard the plural more often than the singular.
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