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I have learnt that the plural of fish is still fish.

However, if we refer to different types of fish, we can use fishes; for example:

The aquarium has three fishes: goldfish, carp, and guppy.

If that is the case, do we say three types of fish or three types of fishes?

tchrist
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Marcus Vitruvius
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2 Answers2

4

one fish, two fish,
red fish, blue fish

There’s only one realistic choice that people make here, in practice not theory, as shown by this ngram:

ngram plotting types of fish vs types of fishes

That chart shows you that what people actually write is overwhelmingly types of fish. Virtually never do they actually write types of fishes. Look at the red line compared with the blue line. There’s just no contest between the two. Blue wins.

Theoretical arguments about acceptability are meaningless in the face of actual data showing what it is that people are using in the real world. You should do what they do.

If it helps, notice that we use kinds of dog, not *kinds of dogs.

tchrist
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If you have 3 goldfish and 2 herring, you have

  • 5 fish
  • 2 fishes
  • 2 types of fish

See usage notes on wiktionary

When referring to two or more kinds of fish, the plural is fishes.

dubious
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    The usual plural of fish, like the usual plurals of salmon, trout, deer, and sheep, is zero. I.e, it's "2 fish". – John Lawler Sep 30 '22 at 15:53
  • fishes of the sea: See the Bible, for example. – Lambie Sep 30 '22 at 18:37
  • I would use "5 fish", "2 types of fish" or "2 types of fishes". I would not use "2 fishes". I have upvoted to make the answer score zero as the reference is useful. – banuyayi Oct 01 '22 at 09:42
  • But Britannica has: 'When you are talking about more than one kind or species of fish, both 'fish' and 'fishes' are ok to use.' Some dictionaries say that 'fishes' is merely a rarer alternative, while some pundits, biologists, and aged and religious people say that 'fishes' is to be used, usually 'for types of fish'. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 01 '22 at 14:47