HPR3525: Battling with English - part 4

Confusing plurals

In this episode, the fourth of this series, I’m looking at some words that have singular and plural forms that are very different. These lead to a lot of confusion as we’ll see.

I also want to look at the way that English is evolving in some very strange and apparently senseless ways!

Personal note: I notice I started preparing this show in 2019; unfortunately, COVID messed up my productivity for the next two years, but I hope I can now begin to be productive again!

Long notes

I have provided detailed notes as usual for this episode, and these can be viewed by following the full notes link.

Links

• Plural of thesis:
  • Grammar Monster
    • This link has some good advice for dealing with weird plurals, though some you just have to remember, there are no rules!

• Irregular plurals which end with "ae" (or "æ"):
  • Wiktionary
    • This is a list of these plurals, 159 of them at the time of writing. Many of these are obsolete however.

• The “is is” problem:
  • StackExchange: Why do some people say “the reason is is that,” with “is” twice in a row?
  • GrammarBook.com: What Is-Is Is, Is Exasperating
  • Wikipedia article on the Double Copula

• “Honing in”:
  • Merriam-Webster: hone in
  • Me Ears Are Alight old British advertisement

• Previous episodes in this series:
  • Battling with English - part 1
  • Battling with English - part 2
  • Battling with English - part 3

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