IRREGULARS NOUNS

AULA INVERSA

OBSERVA EL CAMBIO DE UN NOMBRE CUANDO ES SINGULAR Y POSTERIORMENTE SE VUELVEN PLURAL, ESCRIBE TUS DUDAS Y PREGÚNTALAS EN LA PRÓXIMA CLASE.

Irregular nouns

In English, there are hundreds of nouns that don’t follow the standard rules for pluralization. There are no easy ways to remember them, so they generally have to be memorized.

Some of the rarer irregular plurals are often misused, leading to the creation of variant forms, which usually encounter resistance at first but eventually make it into the language. For example, the plural offormula has traditionally been formulae, but formulas is now far more common, and few would call it incorrect.

Changing vowel sounds

Some nouns change their central vowel sounds when pluralized—for example:

singular	plural
foot	feet
goose	geese
louse	lice
man	men
mouse	mice
tooth	teeth
woman	women

-f becoming –ves

Some nouns ending in –f are pluralized by dropping the –f and adding –ves:

singular	plural
calf	calves
elf	elves
half	halves
hoof	hooves
knife	knives
leaf	leaves
life	lives
loaf	loaves
self	selves
shelf	shelves
thief	thieves
wife	wives
wolf	wolves