Take a lesson from:
Ahhrnold, the Plural-
nator
All the rules and tricks you need to know to form PLURALSPLURALS.
“I take puny singular nouns and PLURAL-NATE THEM! Ha Ha!”
My name is Ahhrnold, the Plural-nator, and I plural-nate puny
regular and irregular nouns and transform them into strong plurals.
I do this by adding specific letters
to the end of the singular noun.
BUT! there are rules to follow to
make sure that each noun has its
correct PLURAL FORM.PLURAL FORM.
For regular nouns: 2 Rules2 Rules
Rule #1:Rule #1:For most puny regular nouns all I do is add an -S at the end to PUMP THEM UP!
Noun ending Forming the plural Examples
consonant Add -scat- cats
chair – chairslook –looks
Rule #2:Rule #2: For words that end in a "hissing" sound (-s, -z, -x, -ch, -sh), add an -es to form the plural.Noun ending Forming the plural Examples
s, x, ch or sh Add -esboss - bosses
tax - taxesbush - bushes
I love to PLURAL-nate puny SINGULARREGULAR NOUNS !!!
How I enjoy turning those TRICKY IRREGULAR NOUNS from singular to
PLURALPLURAL!
They are more CHALLENGING having
7 rules!7 rules!
Rule #1:Rule #1: If the word ends in a consonant plus -y, change the -y into -ie and add an -s to form the
plural.
consonant + yChange y to i
thenAdd -es
fly - fliestry - tries
curry - curries
Noun ending Forming the plural Examples
For irregular nouns:
Rule #2:Rule #2: If the word ends in a vowel plus -y (-ay, -ey, -iy, -oy, -uy), add an -s to the word.
vowel + y Add -skey – keysway - waysboy – boys
Noun ending Forming the plural Examples
Rule #3:Rule #3: For words that end in -is, change the -is to -es to make the
plural form.
-ischange –is to
-esthesis - theses
Noun ending Forming the plural Examples
Rule #4:Rule #4: Words that end in -f or -fe have plurals that end in -ves.
-f or -fechange –f or –fe
to-ves
knife - kniveswife – wives
life - liveself – elves
shelf – shelves
Noun ending Forming the plural Examples
Rule #5:Rule #5: Words that end in -o are formed by either adding -s or by adding -es.
-oadd –s or –es
studio - studiostaco – tacos
stereo – stereospotato – potatoestomato – tomatoes
Noun ending Forming the plural Examples
Rule #6: Rule #6: words that end with –us change the –us to -i
ends with -us Change -us to -i
cactus - cactinucleus -
nucleifocus - foci
Noun ending Forming the plural Examples
Rule #7: Rule #7: if the word ends with -on change –on to -a
ends with -on Change -on to -aphenomenon -
phenomenacriterion - criteria
Noun ending Forming the plural Examples
there are those words that don’t have any rules, you just have to memorize them
ALL KINDS
Change the vowelor
Change the wordor
Add a different ending
man – menfoot – feetchild -childrenperson –peopletooth –teethmouse –mice
And some words don’t change at all…
UnchangingSingular and plural
are the same
SheepDeerFish
Moose
I don’t like those words because I can’t PLURAL-nate them! ARGGGG!!!!
Noun ending Forming the plural Examples
Now that you know how to form pluralsplurals out of those PUNY
singular regular and irregular nouns, you too can be a PLURAL-nator !
Just follow those rules, and if you ever get stuck, check the very
strong, the very heavy, DICTIONARY, before I come over there and PLURAL-NATEPLURAL-NATE YOU!!!
Other links and activities:• Regular Nouns: Lesson & Activity
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/plural.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_spelnoun.html
• Irregular Nouns: Lesson & Activity http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/irrplu.htm
http://www.clta.on.ca/EAOnline/GrammarCentral/reallyirregular.html
• Games:
http://fen.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/shtml.cgi?A1=../plurals/index.htmlhttp://www.quia.com/cc/67715.html