# Misunderstood plurals, or possibly just weird linguistic stuffs **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 5, 2022, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778 "2022-10-05T20:03:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2022, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/81 "2022-10-07T22:17:17Z")
Chupacabras is only plural because the animal _chupa_ the _cabras._ If it were to _chupar_ only one _cabra,_ it could certainly be a _chupacabra._ So they probably start out as a _chupacabra_ when they’re little, and turn into a _chupacabras_ as they get bigger. The Latin for _chupacabras_ is _caprimulgus,_ whose plural is a perfectly regular _caprimulgi,_ also the plural in Italian (singular _caprimulgo_). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/82 "2022-10-08T13:25:38Z")
Why would there be a Latin or Italian word for an animal found only in the New World? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/83 "2022-10-08T13:39:39Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > > [@Kron](#): > > > > This thread is the first time I’ve ever heard that “cannon” is the plural for “cannon”. > > Data is another one. Technically, the singular is “datum” and if you use the word “data”, you should use the plural version of a verb with it - e.g. “the data are suggestive of a decline in whatever due to whatever other factor”. As opposed to a single point, where “the datum suggests an increase in whatever”. > > But “data are” just sounds contrived and pretentious, even though it’s correct. I admit I’d tend to say “The data is suggestive…” or whatever. That’s because “data” is plural in Latin, but singular in English. The Latin meaning is irrelevant unless you have an agenda. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/84 "2022-10-08T13:42:59Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The Latin meaning is irrelevant unless you have an agenda. Ahem. I think you mean _an agendum_ ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/85 "2022-10-08T13:46:34Z")
Exactly. No one objects to saying “an agenda” or “the agenda is,” but many go all pedantic if you say “the data is.” The fact that “data” is plural in Latin is no more than an interesting but irrelevant fact. We’re not speaking Latin. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/86 "2022-10-08T15:47:17Z")
The monster is named after the bird, whose name comes from a strange folk belief. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/87 "2022-10-08T16:14:49Z")
Bird? What bird? I was referring to the often-sighted but seldom-photographed and never-captured animal. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/88 "2022-10-08T18:33:41Z")
My parents grew up speaking Hungarian, another genderless language, not Indo-European to be sure. They have a very hard time with “he” and “she”, getting them mixed up all the time. To a native English speaker it sounds very odd. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/89 "2022-10-08T18:37:17Z")
Here’s a good one. I think it’s another from Steven Pinker: What’s the plural of “lowlife”? It’s “lowlifes”, not “lowlives”. The word is sufficiently removed from the word “life” that it is no longer irregular. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/90 "2022-10-08T19:21:21Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > My parents grew up speaking Hungarian, another genderless language, not Indo-European to be sure. They have a very hard time with “he” and “she”, getting them mixed up all the time. To a native English speaker it sounds very odd. I find Hungarian to be fascinating. I tried to do the Duolingo lessons and I found it terrifically difficult. Inflected nouns! I think the Duolingo style is probably not suited to that kind of language. Almost like Latin, it might be better to learn the grammar before you learn vocabulary. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2022, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/91 "2022-10-08T23:49:02Z")
That reminds me. How do you describe what a batter does when he hits a fly ball caught by a fielder. Most announcers will say he flied out, but occasionally one will say he flew out. Most people do not realize that house has an irregular plural in most dialects, analogous to life, lives. Some dialects have the plural of roof as roofs, some as rooves. Then there is a hoof, hooves with a change in the vowel. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2022, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/92 "2022-10-09T00:30:58Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Most people do not realize that house has an irregular plural in most dialects, analogous to life, lives. …OK, what’s the irregular plural of “house”? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2022, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/93 "2022-10-09T00:36:45Z")
I assume vocalisation of the /s/ phoneme to /z/ in the plural. Bit I don’t know that I would call that “irregular.” ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2022, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/94 "2022-10-09T00:45:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, what’s the irregular plural of “house”? In most dialects, it is pronounced houzes, just like life, lives. I became aware of it because my Philly dialect is an exception. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2022, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/95 "2022-10-09T01:06:41Z")
For that matter, I would argue that the f → v thing is according to the normal rules of English, and that therefore it is the words that keep their final f in the plural that are the irregular ones. Though there are several words that can be pluralized with either f or v, such as dwarf/dwarfs/dwarves and staff/staffs/staves. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2022, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/96 "2022-10-09T01:30:58Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I assume vocalisation of the /s/ phoneme to /z/ in the plural. Bit I don’t know that I would call that “irregular.” It’s Verner’s Law at work. > **[Verner's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verner%27s_law)** > > Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives \*f, \*þ, \*s, \*h, \*hʷ, following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives \*β, \*ð, \*z, \*ɣ, \*ɣʷ. The law was formulated by Karl Verner, and first published in 1877. > A seminal insight into how the Germanic languages diverged from their Indo-European ancestor had been established in the early nineteenth century, and had been formulated as ... ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2022, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/97 "2022-10-09T01:56:12Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > For that matter, I would argue that the f → v thing is according to the normal rules of English, and that therefore it is the words that keep their final f in the plural that are the irregular ones. > > Though there are several words that can be pluralized with either f or v, such as dwarf/dwarfs/dwarves and staff/staffs/staves. This does seem to be a normal consonant mutation in English: > [@](#): > > In Old and Middle English, voiceless fricatives /f/ and /θ/ mutated to voiced fricatives /v/ and /ð/ respectively before a voiced ending. In some words this voicing survives in the modern English plural. In the case of /f/ changing to /v/, the mutation is indicated in the orthography as well; also, a silent _e_ is added in this case if the singular does not already end with _-e_ The “misunderstood plurals” phenomenon seems to be well at work, in any case, because I have absolutely seen reference to a “stave” (in a big fat book about music, for instance). Tolkein jokingly proposed “dwarrow” (from dweorgas/dwerghes/dwarrows) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2022, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/98 "2022-10-09T02:38:55Z")
(nevermind) ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2022, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/99 "2022-10-09T03:29:43Z")
A pronunciation pet peeve of mine is about how -ae plurals (Algae, antennae, alumnae, vertebrae, hyphae, etc.) are frequently mispronounced. All my biology professors back at the university averred the correct pronunciation is a long E as in tree, so that’s what I deem correct. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2022, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778/100 "2022-10-09T05:25:28Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > A pronunciation pet peeve of mine is about how -ae plurals (Algae, antennae, alumnae, vertebrae, hyphae, etc.) are frequently mispronounced. All my biology professors back at the university averred the correct pronunciation is a long E as in tree, so that’s what I deem correct… In English, that’s correct. In Latin, the ae digraph was pronounced the same as a long-I in English (/aj/ in IPA). OTOH, the -i plural ending of 2nd declension masculine nouns was pronounce the same as an English long-E (/i/) in Latin whereas we usually pronounce it as a long-I in English. So basically English switched the pronunciations of those two Latin plural inflections. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misunderstood-plurals-or-possibly-just-weird-linguistic-stuffs/972778.md?page=6)