Foscari - Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Informatica e Statistica

scenario --- scenarios cargo --- cargoes
If the noun ends in a consonant before -y, the plural is formed with -ies:
city --- cities country --- countries floppy --- floppies
If the noun ends in a vowel before -y, the plural is regular:
day --- days play --- plays
A few nounss ending in –f or -fe form the plural with –ves
life --- lives half --- halves
Some nouns do not have a plural form and are never used with a plural verb:
employment health advice information furniture
Some nouns are always plural:
police clothes trousers scissors glasses
Most nouns ending in –ish have plurals in which -is is replaced by -es:
crisis --- crises analysis --- analyses hypothesis --- hypotheses
Exercise 1
Write the plural forms of the following nouns. (Use a dictionary if necessary).
index basis reply society virus volcano mouse
postman medium housewife criterion foot
charity dynamo thesis fax virus directory
mouse floppy
26 Collective Nouns
Some nouns that refer to groups of people can be used with either singular or plural verbs and
pronouns:
The government says it is / say they are worried about unemployment.
A singular verb is used when thinking of the group as a single unit.
A plural verb is used when thinking of the group as a number of individuals:
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