“Nouns, as they are popularly known in English, are a fundamental building block in English grammar. Nouns are a fundamental part of speech in English. They can be found in nearly every sentence, every phrase, and make a vast amount of words.”
Nouns, as they are popularly known in English, are a fundamental building block in English grammar. Nouns are a fundamental part of speech in English. They can be found in nearly every sentence, every phrase, and make a vast amount of words. If you’re familiar with basic English grammar, you’ll know that the basic definition of a noun is that it is a person, place, thing, or idea. When it comes to the topic of singular and plural nouns, we have two separate categories to break our nouns into. In order to understand nouns, we need to know about the difference between singular and plural nouns.
To make the distinction between singular and plural nouns, we must first understand the definition of both concepts. The singular noun describes only one person, place, thing, or idea. The plural noun, in contrast, names more than one person, place, thing, or idea. It’s pretty easy to tell the difference then to distinguish between singular and plural nouns. When you think of singular nouns, think of the word ‘single’, which is similar in both meaning and how the word is written. Let us take a look at some examples to better illustrate what singular and plural nouns are.
Singular: Cat, Dog, Whale, Donkey
Plural: Cats, Dogs, Whales, Donkeys
As you can see from the examples above, the way that we distinguish the singular noun words from the plural noun words is the addition of the ‘s.’ In order to make a noun plural, you’re most often going to add the letter ‘s’ to the end of the word.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that there are certain singular noun words that don’t become plural from adding ‘-s’ to the end of the word and are irregular in their change. Let’s look at some examples of the change made from singular nouns to irregular plural nouns below.
Singular: Bench, Ash, Bus
Plural: Benches, Ashes, Buses
From these examples, you can see that in order to make the singular nouns to become plural, you need to add ‘-es’ to the end of the word and not just ‘-s.’ Specifically, for those singular nouns that end in s, x, z, ch, sh, you’re always going to add ‘-es’ after those letters to make the singular noun plural.
For those singular nouns that end in the letter ‘-y’, in order to make that same noun plural, you need to drop the ‘-y’ and add ‘-ies’ to make the plural noun. Here are some examples.
Singular: Baby, Candy, Party
Plural: Babies, Candies, Parties
As you can see, the ‘y’ is dropped and the ‘ies’ is added to make these words plural.
It’s also important to be aware that there are a few cases where singular nouns can become plural without adding s, es, ies, etc. These are unique words but they become plural nouns through different changes. Here are some examples below:
Man –> Men
Woman –> Women
Mouse –> Mice
There are also some nouns that don’t make any changes to their structure at all and maintain the same form whether they are singular or are plural.
Here are some word examples where they stay the same: deer, sheep, fish.
Some nouns can also maintain a plural form with an ‘-s’ ending but never be able to have a singular noun form given their structural makeup.
These words include: news, sports, billiards.
Other nouns will only have a singular form without a ‘-s’ ending but won’t be able to become plural due to their structural makeup as well.
These words include: bowling, music, badminton.
Having an understanding of and being able to use singular and plural nouns proficiently in English is extremely important. Luckily, this topic is one of the most straightforward to follow and to memorize. There are variations to the rules that make a singular noun plural so it’s vital to study the possible changes that can be made. Whether it’s adding a simple ‘s’ to the end of the word or changing the whole structure of the word such as mouse à mice, studying this grammar topic will take time and effort. Do your best with singular and plural nouns because it is a fundamental part of English speech.
