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Perplexing Plurals
- 242 statements
- 45 feature instances
- 19 referencing feature instances
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Part of what you know when you know a language is how to make your words fit into a grammatical system. This can be fairly simple, as in English (the odd -s here, the odd -ed there) or fairly complex, as in the Russian case system. One thing all systems have in common though, is that they work all the time. For every singular, there is a plural.(Though there are cases where there is neither.) It might be regular (trope, tropes) or irregular (goose, geese), but you know it's there and you know what it is. ...until you find yourself needing to talk about octopuses...octopus...octopi- no, that's Latin...octopodes? Ugh, now this is going to bother you all day.note The fact that all three plurals given in this example are considered correct doesn't help. Sometimes you go for a plural and...there isn't one. Maybe it's an unfamiliar word, maybe you've heard different options and don't know what to pick, maybe language is just screwing with you. Whatever the reason, it feels so overwhelmingly wrong that you have to stop and talk about it. Almost always derails the conversation at hand, and may be the equivalent of a Logic Bomb to a Grammar Nazi. Truth in Television. English has borrowed rather large number of plural forms from other languages, most notably Latin (alumnus/alumni, formula/formulae), Greek (phenomenon/phenomena, stigma/stigmata), French (tableau/tableaux), while also retaining plural forms from archaic English (goose/geese, ox/oxen, cow/kine note known to trivia nerds as the only word where the plural and singular forms share no common letter). Related to the phenomenon of "paradigmatic gapping" in Real Life, where a grammatical form that logically should exist just...doesn't.case in point...The proverbial example in English is the verb "can", which can be used in the present or the past, but not in any other tenses. You just can't say "I will can do X", you need to use something like "will be able to" instead. Note: This is crucially not a trope used by Funny Foreigners. It is confusion about a speaker's own language (and the need to stop and work it out) and usually not caused by ignorance or Book Dumb (although expect a character beset by Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness to be immune). See Pluralses. |
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DBTropes | |
| Perplexing Plurals / int_14f9297e | type |
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Once in The Far Side, an octopus addresses a lecture hall full of his fellows — and even he can't figure out what the plural is. | |
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While the original film uses the plural "Gelflings", the prequel series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, in just one of several linguistic retcons to enhance the world's whimsy, uses "Gelfling" as both singular and plural. | |
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Gilmore Girls: At one point, Rory and Lorelai debate the proper way to pluralize "cul-de-sac." Rory (correctly) argues that it's "culs-de-sac," while Lorelai prefers "cul-de-sacs." | |
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An episode of Hercules involving the crew of the Argo had an argument over the plural of cyclops, with most of the suggestions being similar to plurals of "octopus". Ironically, the one a person stated most authoritative ("cyclopi") is the only one that wasn't right. | |
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In The Simpsons, Principal Skinner at one point refers to "hypothetical dogs and poni". | |
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Miraculous Ladybug: It hasn't come up in the show yet, but the fandom cannot for the life of them agree on the proper plural of "Miraculous". | |
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The girls of iCarly spend a fairly large amount of "iGo to Japan" arguing of the current plural of the word "possum". The episode suggests "single possum, multiple possi". The correct plural is indeed possums | |
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Castle: In one episode, the team is interviewing a mother-daughter witness pair whose last name is Casillas. Castle, being interested in language, points out that it's a hard name to possessive-pluralize, as it would be "Casillases's." This leaves Ryan confused how to just pluralize it, causing him to stick on too many "esses." | |
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In the Surgical Spirit episode "The Locum", one character claims that the plural of locum is "loca". Shelia counters this with "museums", "chrysanthemums" and "dum-dums". | |
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Mystery Men: Captain Amazing comments to Casanova Frankenstein that they have always been each other's greatest "nemisises..nemisi..." (It's "nemeses," as Casanova points out.) | |
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| Perplexing Plurals / int_3cd90f30 | comment |
There is a variant of this in Arrested Development. GOB has just chipped a tooth, causing him to whistle his S's, and is dense enough that he think he can avoid using an "S" by switching to a different plural noun. | |
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The Dresden Files: In book six, Harry Dresden figures out some of the players in the mystery, and comments that "we were dealing with a succubus. Or more than one, which for grammatical reasons I hoped was not the case." (It's Succubi, by the way.) In another book, Harry is at a charity art auction when he runs into Gentleman Johnny Marcone. Trying to distract Marcone, Harry mentions that he's there because he collects velvet Elvises, or as he prefers to call them, velvet Elvii, since the proper pluralization tends to lead to his Gollum impersonation. |
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SCP Foundation states right that the beginning of the Nexus Hub that the correct plural is "Nexuses." The reasoning for this is fully explained in the page discussion. | |
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Discworld: In the Post Office Diary, a public statement by the Post Office apologising for the fact some mail has been defecated upon by mongooses (which were deliberately placed in the post boxes to kill the snakes, which were deliberately placed there to eat the toads...) is followed by one saying that they've been following the mongooses/mongeese debate in the Ankh-Morpork Times with interest, but don't feel it's really the point. When Lord Rust is looking at the map of Klatch in The War Room in Jingo: |
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The Big Bang Theory: Raj tells Leonard and Howard that he hopes they fall down and break their 'coccyxes'. Sheldon corrects him that the plural of 'coccyx' is 'coccyges'. | |
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In the Ultimate Spider-Man episode "Strange Little Halloween", Spidey gets hung up on the plural of "nemesis", suggesting "nemesises" and "nemesi". Ant-Man tells him it's "nemeses", and he says that doesn't sound right. | |
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Dungeons & Dragons: Apparently the plural form of "slaad" is not "slaads" but rather "slaadi". |
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Officially, there are no such things as Legos. LEGO is an uncountable noun, as in "some Lego", and the countable items are "pieces of Lego" or "Lego bricks". To someone used to this, "five Legos" sounds like referring to kernels of sweetcorn as "five sweetcorns". | |
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In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Greece Lightning", the narrator of an educational filmstrip is unsure how to refer to platypi. Platypuses. Platypeople? Early on the episode, Major Monogram is just as confused and expresses it the same way the narrator does. Discussed in the episode "Primal Perry", when Dr. Doofenshmirtz and his hired muscle Liam O'Kraken get sidetracked over whether the correct plural is "platypuses" or "platypi". Liam explains the former, despite sounding wrong, is the more correct term, but the latter is still acceptable. |
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Our Miss Brooks: How do you reference two men with the same surname? In "Mr. Boynton's Parents", nervousness sees Miss Brooks momentarily confused as to the correct manner in referencing Mr. Boynton and his father: | |
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The Ricky Gervais Show: Ricky once relayed a story where he asked Karl what the plural of "mongoose" was, saying that most people would say it's "mongeese" when it's actually "mongooses". Karl's answer? "Mongs". | |
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Nobody in the Freespace fandom is sure what the plural of "Sathanas" is supposed to be (given that it's an alternate name for Satan, it probably doesn't have one). Expect to see "Sathanai", "Sathanes", or "Sathanaseses" depending on the fan in question. The game itself avoids the issue by always referring to that ship class as "Sathanas juggernaut(s)". | |
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In The Muppet Christmas Carol, the muppet mice try both "mouses" and "meeces"! | |
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In one episode of Kim Possible Drakken buys a Weather-Control Machine drains a lake for water, and he comments on the machine not filtering out all the "fishes". This launches an argument between him and Shego about what the plural of fish is. Shego tells him that both fishes and fish are correct plurals for the word. | |
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In Good Omens, Shadwell's instructions to Newt are to search for: | |
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The Brady Bunch: The B Plot of the episode "The Personality Kid" concerns Bobby & Cindy going ape-shit over safety. The following concerns some electrical outlets in the kitchen, which have so many extensions & multi-prongs plugged in that one is referred to as an "octopus". | |
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Pokémon averts this by making the plural names of all Pokémon species, as well as "Pokémon" itselfnote despite being an abbreviation of "Pocket Monsters", unchanged from the singular versions. Not that this stops some people from referring to "Pokémons" or "Pokeymans". | |
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In the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids episode "From Honey, with Love", the family briefly gets into an argument over the correct plural of "moose". Nick produces the correct answer: "The plural of 'moose' is 'moose'. Like 'sheep', or 'deer'." | |
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Since the climax of The Pyrates occurs at the aptly-named Octopus Rock, the inevitable confusion ensues. Antihero Colonel Blood uses the incorrect Latinate plural "octopi", and smarmy hero Captain Avery offers him the correct (though antiquated) Greek "octopods" or "octopodes". Largely out of contrariness, Blood elects to go with "octopussies". | |
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In Magic: The Gathering, a powerful mana-generating card is the Mox (Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, and so forth). Traditionally, the plural is "Moxen". | |
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Mr. Jinks hates meeces to pieces! | |
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In Teen Titans, Control Freak gets stuck on the plural for "nemesis" in one episode. | |
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An odd inversion occurs in Jemjammer where Cacophony briefly uses "octopi" to refer to a singular sewer octopus. | |
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The Dark Crystal Though no one in-universe is unaware of this, the word "Skeksis" is both singular and plural; the singular is pronounced "skek-siss" and the plural "skek-sees". While the original film uses the plural "Gelflings", the prequel series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, in just one of several linguistic retcons to enhance the world's whimsy, uses "Gelfling" as both singular and plural. |
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Warhammer 40,000: The Tyranids have the Carnifex. Good luck getting the fans to agree on a plural. The plural of "codex" (the name for a faction army book) is another one. Although "codexes" is used officially, many prefer the correct Latin form "codices" (and, likewise, will use "carnifices" to pluralise carnifex, also correct Latin). Given that many things in 40k get pseudo-Latin names that don't abide by traditional Latin grammatical rules, this might actually be less appropriate. |
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My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic took a while to commit to a standard plural form of "pegasus", initially copping out and using "pegasus ponies" before settling on "pegasi". In "Hearth's Warming Eve", Chancellor Puddinghead, as played by Pinkie Pie in the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant, gets confused and calls them "pegasus-es-es." | |
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The Sultan's advisors in Hugo the Hippo can't agree on the plural of "hippopotamus", suggesting "hippopotamuses", "hippopotami", and even "hippopotamus", before the Sultan cuts the Gordian knot and calls them "hippos". | |
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Dumbing of Age: Joyce mocks her own judgmental tendencies by jokingly asserting that the plural of "hanky-panky" is "hankies-panky". | |
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At one point in Assassin's Creed II, Desmond loses his focus when wondering what the plural for "animus", the machines that allow him to experiece his ancestors' lives, is. | |
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The Witches (2020) has this exchange after the three mice escape the Grand High Witch: | |
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In Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Riley comments that, after falling in with the main characters, he suddenly finds himself needing to know the plural of "apocalypse". (It's "apocalypses", by the way). In the 6th-season's "Gone", Warren declares to Buffy that "We are your arch-nemesises...ses." When they fail to open their escape door, Buffy mockingly says to Willow: "I give you my arch-nemesis...ses...ses." It became a Brick Joke when a vampire the next season said it was "nemeses," which Buffy duly noted. In the seventh season, Willow tries to assemble the ingredients for a spell: |
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In Chrom and Sumia's A Support in Fire Emblem: Awakening, Chrom isn't sure if the plural for "pegasus" is "pegasuses" or "pegasi". He then settles on the latter in their S Support. | |
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House of Anubis: When Patricia offers to "share" Eddie with Mara and have him be a shared nemesis, she trips up in trying to figure out what the plural of nemesis would actually be. She ends up just going with "arch enemies". | |
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Kingdom of Loathing tends to have a lot of fun with plurals, with "box" becoming "boxen", "kiwi" becoming "kiwus", "fruit basket" becoming "fruits basket", and "liar's pants" becoming "liar's pantses, precious". Items which you can only legitimately have one of tend to have plurals calling No Fair Cheating; for example, the plural of "Staff of Ed" is "Staves of Ed, you dirty exploiter you". | |
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Some Russian jokes deal with the unpredictable nature of Russian plural nouns. An example from Wikipedia: | |
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