Singular and Plural

Concept: Add -s &-es

Definition:

• In order to change a word from singular to plural ‘s’ or ‘es’ are added to the end of a word.
• When you want to indicate more than one noun, ‘s’ or ‘es’ are added at the end.

Examples :

Here, the picture has more than one noun , the word ‘boys’ and ‘cats’ have ‘s’ at the end.

Rules

1. When the singular nouns end in ‘s’, ‘o’, ‘ss’, ‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘x’, or ‘z’, add ‘es’ at the end to make it plural.

Examples :

1. bus – buses
2. tax – taxes
3. brush – brushes
4. Potato – potatoes

However there are exceptions to this rule.

2. If the singular noun ends in ‘y’ and the letter before the ‘y’ is a vowel, add an ‘s’ to make it plural.

Examples :

1. ray – rays
2. boy – boys
3. If the noun ends with ‘fe’ or ‘f’, the f is usually changed to ‘ve’ before adding the ‘s’ to the plural version.

Examples :

1. wife – wives
2. wolf – wolves

Common Mistakes

• Don’t use ‘s’ or ‘es’ in the plural form of words like child. Remember, no ‘s’ used on child to make it plural. The plural of child is children.

  Incorrect and Correct Usage:

  He has two children.

  He has two childs.

  There are many such words which doesn’t take ‘s’ or ‘es’ in their plural forms.

  Examples :

  Singular	Plural
  Man	Men
  Tooth	Teeth
  Woman	Women

• In words like ‘people’, nothing changes when you turn it into plural form. It remains the same. So, don’t add ‘s’ to ‘people’ to make it plural.

  Correct and Incorrect Usage:

  There are many people living in this colony.

  There are many peoples living in this colony.