# What is the plural of "Apocalypse"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 11, 2020, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420 "2020-06-11T00:48:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/62 "2020-06-13T19:21:48Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > “I had the soft foam football and the smooshie foam basketball. I guess there are others, too, but those were all the **Nerves** I needed.” You jest, but in fact _nerf_ is the French singular for nerve. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/63 "2020-06-13T19:32:01Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Or anyone. What’s the singular of _zucchini_? (Hint: Trick question) > [@Chronos](#): > > Obviously a trick, since there’s never any such thing as just one of those. Not true. I stopped at the store today and bought just a single zucchinum. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/64 "2020-06-13T19:43:17Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not true. I stopped at the store today and bought just a single zucchinum. Being an Italian word, shouldn’t it be zucchino? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/65 "2020-06-14T00:45:55Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > More prosaically, it’s an uncovering. > > I once heard that the plural of charisma is charismata. If so, that’s my favorite plural. It’s also a difficult plural to use in a sentence. You’re just having the wrong kind of conversations 🙂 [As James Fowler observed,](https://www.christinyou.net/pages/chrsmata.html) “We should keep in mind that most of the Biblical information we have about the charismata comes from the context of corrective enjoinders necessitated by misunderstanding and abuse.” ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/66 "2020-06-14T03:45:48Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Being an Italian word, shouldn’t it be zucchino? Courgette 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/67 "2020-06-14T04:04:17Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Being an Italian word, shouldn’t it be zucchino? Yes, in Italian the singular is zucchino, but in English zucchini has become accepted as a singular, and zucchinis as plural. Paparazzi is another word rarely seen in English in the singular. It comes from Paparazzo, a character in Fellini’s _La Dolce Vita_, so it’s not even a proper Italian word. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen paparazzo in the wild in English. If reference is made to a single one, it’s usually as “a member of the paparazzi.” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/68 "2020-06-14T11:41:33Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Being an Italian word, shouldn’t it be zucchino? You’d think! Yes! Weirdly, the actual Italian word is _zucchina_, plural _zucchine_. It’s the diminutive of _zucca_ ‘gourd’, which is feminine. The masculinized plural in -_i_ is what got borrowed into English. There is no _zucchino_ (at least not in standard Italian; dialect is possibly another matter). _Zucchini_ is a word without a singular. It isn’t even a _plurale tantum_, a plural word for a single object, like scissors or trousers. It’s just an anomaly. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/69 "2020-06-14T15:21:20Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Weirdly, the actual Italian word is _zucchina_, plural _zucchine_. It’s the diminutive of _zucca_ ‘gourd’, which is feminine. The masculinized plural in -_i_ is what got borrowed into English. There is no _zucchino_ (at least not in standard Italian; dialect is possibly another matter). Some words for pasta get mangled in the transition to English. For example, \*linguina \*is the diminutive of _lingua_, so a bowl of them is _linguine_. But English speakers usually say “lin-GWEEN-ee” instead of “lin-GWEEN-ay” so it gets misspelled as _linguini_. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2020, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/70 "2020-06-14T22:33:47Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > You’re just having the wrong kind of conversations 🙂 > > [As James Fowler observed,](https://www.christinyou.net/pages/chrsmata.html) “We should keep in mind that most of the Biblical information we have about the charismata comes from the context of corrective enjoinders necessitated by misunderstanding and abuse.” Oooo! That reminds me of one of my favorite cookbooks. Well, it’s theme tickles me even though I haven’t tried many of the recipes yet. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/71 "2020-06-16T09:08:16Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Some words for pasta get mangled in the transition to English. For example, \*linguina \*is the diminutive of _lingua_, so a bowl of them is _linguine_. But English speakers usually say “lin-GWEEN-ee” instead of “lin-GWEEN-ay” so it gets misspelled as _linguini_. Yes, something like that. Except that the original feminine plural _linguine_ has survived as the spelling in English, while that final vowel change has stuck in the English spelling of _zucchini_. ---
**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:** [June 16, 2020, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420/72 "2020-06-16T15:15:25Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Some words for pasta get mangled in the transition to English. For example, \*linguina \*is the diminutive of _lingua_, so a bowl of them is _linguine_. But English speakers usually say “lin-GWEEN-ee” instead of “lin-GWEEN-ay” so it gets misspelled as _linguini_. Similar thing happened with the Polish word “pierogi,” which is common in certain parts in the US and Canada, though I understand it may not be universally known. In Polish, it is already plural. One _pieróg_ or _pierog_ (there seems to be some debate about this. We used the latter in our family, but the former seems to be the standard version). Many _pierogi_ (when used in the nominative–I won’t get into declensions and all that.) But, in the US, it’s used as “one pierogi, many pierogis.” Which makes sense, as it came into English in the Polish native plural, was re-analyzed to conform to English, and the plural ended up pluralized in English. A similar thing happens with my father’s (and other native Poles who moved to America and adapted a sort of Polish-English hybrid with some words). My dad, for example, uses “hot dogs” in the singular in Polish. _Ten hotdogs mi smakuje_ (“This hot dog tastes good to me.”) And then, when he needs to make it plural in Polish, he tacks on the appropriate Polish plural marker, “y” in this case, to make it _hotdogsy_ (though pronounced as if it were spelled _hadoksy_ in Polish.) That said, it’s a quirk of Chicago Polish, or possibly even just a family quirk. In Poland, it would be _hot dog_ and _hot dogi_. (Actually, now googling around, it appears there are “hot dogsy” usages of the plural on Polish websites originating in Poland, though “hot dogi” seems to be the more accepted plural. So it’s not just a family or Chicago quirk (though it is possible it came back into Poland via American Poles.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-plural-of-apocalypse/855420.md?page=3)