# The pluplural **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 23, 2021, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386 "2021-08-23T18:50:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ALOHA\_HATER](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/76d3ee/32.png) [@ALOHA\_HATER](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ALOHA_HATER)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/1 "2021-08-23T18:50:00Z")
> Two farthings = One Ha’penny. Two ha’pennies = One Penny. Three pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). Once Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea. There’s something interesting in this Prachett quote. We have multiple plurals. Three pennies (coins) are worth three pence (“Cents,” but not really.) We have one penny, then many pennies, pence, and… pences! Pences seems to mean coins in your pocket rather than value, like pennies does, when the coin is called xpence. I’d call this a pluplural. Are there any other weird extra-plurals, in English or other languages? I understand that there’s child → childer (arch.) → children, but that’s a different kind of phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/2 "2021-08-23T19:07:16Z")
All all y’all. Peoples. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/3 "2021-08-23T19:12:36Z")
Agendas is an example of a plural of a plural (the root singular being agendum; several of which make up “an” agenda). I imagine there will be more examples where we pluralize Latin plurals.Same for some words borrowed from other languages as well, I shouldn’t wonder. j ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/4 "2021-08-23T20:02:08Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > I imagine there will be more examples where we pluralize Latin plurals operas ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/5 "2021-08-23T20:27:51Z")
I don’t know if it’s quite the same thing for you, but some languages have the dual number, in addition to the singular and plural. Slovenian, for instance, still retains the dual (and I believe all the Slavic languages used to have it). Arabic seems to have it (from looking it up – I don’t know much about the language) as well as many of the Semitic languages. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/6 "2021-08-23T21:09:01Z")
Fish, fish, fishes. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/7 "2021-08-23T21:14:29Z")
🎶 If you have no ha’penny then God bless you. 🎵 ---
**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:** [August 23, 2021, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/8 "2021-08-23T21:21:06Z")
That quote doesn’t contain “pences”. It does contain, for instance, sixpences. But “a sixpence” is singular: it’s one single coin, that has a value of 6d. There are multiple plurals in the etymology, but not in the usage. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2021, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/9 "2021-08-24T00:11:59Z")
A person and another person and another person are people A bunch of people in one country and a bunch of people in some other countries are many peoples ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2021, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/10 "2021-08-24T02:57:40Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t know if it’s quite the same thing for you, but some languages have the dual number, in addition to the singular and plural. Slovenian, for instance, still retains the dual (and I believe all the Slavic languages used to have it). ProtoIndoEuropean had the dual number, so all IndoEuropean languages have it or had it somewhere in their history. For English, it was lost somewhere between Old English and Middle English. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2021, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/11 "2021-08-24T02:58:14Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > A person and another person and another person are people But not **a** people. The group all of the same heritage or ethnicity are a people. As well as being people. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/12 "2021-08-26T04:59:14Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Arabic seems to have it (from looking it up – I don’t know much about the language) as well as many of the Semitic languages. The dual plural. Hebrew has it. I think it’s roughly equivalent to the English phrase “a pair of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_”. But it’s used is a wider variety of circumstances, for example, any body parts that come in pairs. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/13 "2021-08-26T11:32:57Z")
Panini is plural in Italian but singular in English, so we say 2 paninis. French people call spaghetti spaghettis, adding a French plural to an Italian plural. ---
**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:** [August 26, 2021, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/14 "2021-08-26T11:36:27Z")
Come to think of it, “pierogi” is another ethnic food that’s plural in its language of origin, but usually treated as singular in English (and thus re-pluralized). ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/15 "2021-08-26T13:59:20Z")
Paczki (the wonderful pre-Lent treat like a filled donut) is also a plural the we re-pluaralize. The singular is paczek. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/16 "2021-08-26T14:14:09Z")
The stuffed cabbage dish gołąbki/galumpki/halu(m)pki or whatever your local spelling is for this Eastern European dish is similarly already in the plural. It happens in the reverse, too. For example, my Polish father and his friends pluralize the already plural “hot dogs” when he says “chcesz hogdogsy?” (“Do you want hot dogs [with both -s, English plural marker, and -y one of the Polish plural markers.]”) This seems to be a characteristic of immigrant Polish, as in Poland they say “hot dogi” for the plural of “hot dogs.” Or “czypsy” for “chips” instead of “czypy.” ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/17 "2021-08-26T14:46:45Z")
> [@hibernicus](#): > > Panini is plural in Italian but singular in English, so we say 2 paninis. > > French people call spaghetti spaghettis, adding a French plural to an Italian plural. Americans call Lego Legos, while the rest of the world calls it Lego. _Battery_ is an interesting word. Electrically it describes a bank of cells, But it also describes a group of cannon (note - not cannons). ---
**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:** [August 26, 2021, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/18 "2021-08-26T14:50:33Z")
I’ve never heard multiple lists of official sources referred to as a battery… I have, however, seen it used for multiple large-bore firearms. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pluplural/949386/19 "2021-08-26T14:56:46Z")
Spelling corrected - thank you.