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What makes these two words so different that 'man' is changed to 'men', but 'German' is changed to 'Germans'?

Bradd Szonye
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Adra Elkins
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    We humen like to bend rules and be creative. – mike3996 Apr 19 '13 at 09:54
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    The answer to "should English be consistent in spelling?" is quite different to the answer to "is English consistent in spelling?"... – Wooble Apr 19 '13 at 11:40
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    Yeah, and since the plural of tooth is teeth, I suppose the plural of booth should have been beeth. And since we say that the teacher taught, we must also say that the preacher praught. That was a light-hearted way of saying the same thing as @progo's comment : We sure like to bend rules and be creative. Words have all sorts of reasons to be in their present form. Nowadays, I hear that people are facebook-ing (keeping in contact through facebook), kik-ing (messaging on kik) and SMS-ing (sending a text message in your mobile phone) each other :-) – rktcool Apr 19 '13 at 12:25
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    Why won't we have equality and change history to theirtory? – Oleg V. Volkov Apr 19 '13 at 13:08
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    The British invasion by the Romen was followed up by waves of alien hordes, culminating in the conquest of the Normen. – tchrist Apr 19 '13 at 13:10
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    afikoman, Bildungsroman, ceriman, caiman, daman, desman, dhaman, dolman, firman, Haman, hetman, human, Künstlerroman, leman, liman, Mussulman, Naman, Norman, Oklahoman, ottoman, Ottoman, Panaman, Pullman, pygman, Quartodeciman, Roman, saman, shaman, talisman, Tallman, terjiman, Tolman, truchman, Turcoman, Turkman. – tchrist Apr 19 '13 at 14:05
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    If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes? :) – grep Apr 19 '13 at 14:45
  • Check out the Chaos poem; English is more frelled than that! (Granted, it's more about pronunciation than pluralization; I think it still makes my point ^_^) – Izkata Apr 19 '13 at 17:04
  • @grep: That only works with a single "l", not with a double "ll". – Pieter Geerkens Apr 20 '13 at 04:38
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    gerMENSCH, maybe. You're approximating a foreign word, there. – ZJR Apr 20 '13 at 11:53
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    Three remarks germānus in Latin, means originally: close, coming from the same stem, having the same father, then true, proved, genuine, of good quality, on which you can rely (as should be the trust you have in your brother). It is a very common adjective in the classical language. One interpretation is that by transfer, it became the name of those tribes east of the Rhine that looked alike for those who lived west of the Rhine. Germen exists in Latin as a noun it means a sprout, a bud, an offshoot. Hermano meaning brother in Spanish comes from the Latin germanus. – ogerard Apr 20 '13 at 09:59
  • Bradd Szonye's answer proves this is an unfounded question. Why is this 'protected' -- I see no justification other than preventing a comment like this. – Kris May 07 '13 at 05:01
  • Voting to close as NARQ. When the tag is etymology, why was the etymology of 'German(y)' not researched and cited in the question? – Kris May 07 '13 at 05:03
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_Germany#Etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_country-name_etymologies#G – Kris May 07 '13 at 05:09
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    Possible duplicate of Why are plurals ‘*humen’ and ‘*Germen’ not conventional? – tchrist Oct 17 '15 at 12:28
  • @tchrist, the putative duplicate was asked 2 days ago; this was asked in 2013. "This question has been asked before..." does not apply. – JEL Oct 19 '15 at 09:04

5 Answers5

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German is from the Latin word germani; unlike the similar-looking demonyms Englishman and Frenchman, it is etymologically unrelated to the word man and does not form a plural the same way.

Bradd Szonye
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    This is correct. It is nothing more than a coincidence that these two words happen to use the same set of three letters. (I would merely mention that the Latin name of Germany was Germania, not germani). – John M. Landsberg Apr 19 '13 at 07:04
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    @JohnM.Landsberg That's correct: Germania is the land, germani is the people. – Bradd Szonye Apr 19 '13 at 07:05
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    Remarkable. Out of all the words ending in –man at http://www.litscape.com/word_tools/ends_with.php it seems that only German and I suggest, caiman, shaman, and talisman don’t form a plural –men. – Avrohom Yitzchok Apr 19 '13 at 13:16
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    @AvrohomYitzchok: See also :) – Ry- Apr 19 '13 at 13:45
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    @AvrohomYitzchok afikoman, Bildungsroman, ceriman, daman, desman, dhaman, dolman, firman, Haman, hetman, human, Künstlerroman, leman, liman, Mussulman, Naman, Norman, Oklahoman, ottoman, Ottoman, Panaman, Pullman, pygman, Quartodeciman, Roman, saman, talisman, Tallman, terjiman, Tolman, truchman, Turcoman, Turkman. – tchrist Apr 19 '13 at 14:04
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    @AvrohomYitzchok: Even from the rather limited litscape.com list, you missed "human" and its derivatives (the list has "inhuman", "nonhuman", "subhuman" and "superhuman"). – Ilmari Karonen Apr 19 '13 at 15:27
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    I'd upvote, but I don't want to destroy the perfect 100. – Luke_0 Apr 26 '13 at 00:16
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    @Luke Fixed that for ya. – MetaEd May 06 '13 at 23:22
  • Might as well upvote now... Or should I downvote? evil grin – Luke_0 May 06 '13 at 23:29
  • @Luke Ha! Thanks for the upvote and the evil grin. – Bradd Szonye May 06 '13 at 23:31
  • Evil grin retracted – Luke_0 May 07 '13 at 00:11
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Words like human and German are not from man and do not contain the (Germanic) morpheme man, as you say. Only the morpheme man is properly pluralised as men. See the list of words in Tchrist's answer for an overview of which words are from man and which aren't. In human and German, we're dealing with the Latin suffix -anus, which means something vague like "having to do with x", shortened to -an in English.

Cf. Republican (same Latin suffix), Qur'an (an Arabic morpheme): we don't say two Republicen were reading their Qur'en.

The true etymology is very important, because folk etymology is not very common in general and hardly ever accepted by the "writing classes". So it does not often become popular enough to displace the original.

Further, there would be little difference in pronunciation between human and humen, because the last syllable is unstressed; folk etymology normally originates in speech, not writing, which means that this plural would be much less useful to speakers. (In women, a trick was performed by having a differently pronounced first syllable to distinguish between woman (/wʊ-/) and women (/wɪ-/), which words would otherwise be pronounced (almost) the same.)

Cerberus - Reinstate Monica
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It’s because they are not, or are not thought of as being, composed of a base noun which the word man has been pasted on to the end of. Without the word man to start with, you won’t get men out of the plural.

Here’s a longer list of such things:

  • ataman
  • caiman
  • cayman
  • ceriman
  • desman
  • dolman
  • farman
  • harman
  • hetman
  • human
  • leman
  • ottoman
  • shaman
  • talisman
  • Alabaman
  • Bahaman
  • Burman
  • German
  • Hiroshiman
  • Liman
  • Nakayaman
  • Norman
  • Oklahoman
  • Panaman
  • Roman
  • Selman
  • Sonaman
  • Tacoman
  • Yakiman
  • Yokohaman
  • Yuman

In other words, there is no man morpheme present to undergo that word’s (now irregular) i-mutation the way there is in these:

  • airman
  • bailsman
  • barman
  • churchman
  • draftman
  • frontierman
  • gamesman
  • handiman
  • highwayman
  • Irishman
  • juryman
  • kinsman
  • lawman
  • madman
  • nobleman
  • Orkneyman
  • pikeman
  • quarryman
  • ragman
  • rifleman
  • Scotsman
  • seaman
  • tradesman
  • underclassman
  • vestryman
  • watchman
  • workman
  • yachtsman

See the difference?

Be aware that one on rare occasion still sees this pattern:

  • foramen > foramina
  • gravamen > gravamina
  • legumen > legumina
  • molimen > molimina
  • nomen > nomina
  • stamen > stamina
  • specimen > specimina
  • tegmen > tegmina
  • tentamen > tentamina
  • velamen > velamina

Most of those Latin inflections have now been assimilated into regular English plurals, except sometimes in scientific literature.

tchrist
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    Of course the irony is that while this answer correctly identifies an etymological fallacy, it, in turn, is an etymological fallacy in its own right. The only real answer to the question "why is humen not acceptable" is "because nobody ever uses it, at all". If everyone did use it, it would be perfectly acceptable, or even the norm. The real answer to any why question about language is "because". There is no other answer. There is no reason. There can't be. It's all just chance. It just so happens. – RegDwigнt Oct 16 '15 at 13:54
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    @RegDwigнt: Then answer me this question. Is it never useful to explain what factors caused a certain form to become used or not used, if such factors can be identified? – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Oct 16 '15 at 14:07
  • @RegDwigнt - I partly agree but Cerberus' answer gives an actual reason. It relates to the position of the stress. In modern English, 'human' and 'humen' would tend to be indistinguishable because the stress is on 'hu' and the final vowel would therefore be a schwa. [Cross-posted with Cerberus' comment] – chasly - supports Monica Oct 16 '15 at 14:08
  • @Cerberus: oh if you know the factors, knock yourself out. But you seem to miss my point that more often than not we just do not know them. It's all idle speculation in hindsight. It's justification after the fact. As are, indeed, most grammar "rules", which are really but mere observations. – RegDwigнt Oct 16 '15 at 14:12
  • @chaslyfromUK oh yes, totally. So just to make sure I understand: are you saying that the stress in "firemen" and "policemen" falls on the men, or are you saying that the correct plural is "firemans" and "policemans"? – RegDwigнt Oct 16 '15 at 14:16
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    @RegDwigнt: Sure, I agree that it is useless to talk about something that really isn't known at all. But how is the asker to know that in advance? Besides, in reality, we often do have an idea of some factors, and we put them in our answers. They are rarely 100% proven, but a substantiated argument can be quite useful, if we're not entirely sure. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Oct 16 '15 at 14:16
  • @RegDwigнt: As to your comment on Chasly, read my answer, which answers your question (whether you agree with it ot not). – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Oct 16 '15 at 14:17
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As tchrist pointed out in his answer, it hinges on whether the word is considered to be base descriptive word + man. Some of your examples, like German, were never formed that way. However, the OED gives an example of Normen as a plural in Old English:

OE Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Tiber. B.i) anno 1066 Þær wæs Harold cyning of Norwegan & Tostig eorl ofslagen, & gerim folces mid heom, ægðer ge Normana ge Englisca, & þa Normen [flugon þa Englis[c]a].

OE Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Tiber. B.iv) anno 1049 Harold for to Norwegum, Magnus fædera, syððan Magnus dead wæs, & Normen hine underfengon.

Compare to Englisman, Englishmen, which are still both acceptable. I'd guess that as Norman became seen more as the name of the people, its plural became more regular. It stopped being a compound word and became a simple word.

Community
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Mr. Shiny and New 安宇
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    The reason is probably that it came to English through French. The Germanic suffix -man is not known in French and less easily recognised by the French, so they probably said and wrote Normans. So there already was a plural on -s when the Normans invaded England. P.S. It's also interesting how they write Normand and Normandie. Cf. Dutch niemand for "noöne, no-man", which is also from man and also has the -d, which is odd in Dutch. I believe German also has inflected forms like niemandem? – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Oct 16 '15 at 14:20
  • Consider also the obsolete word Mussulman, which was a borrowing from Arabic musulman, meaning a Muslim. This does not contain the morpheme "man", but plural Mussulmen was certainly found as well as Mussulmans. (The Arabic plural is maslamin IIRC). – Colin Fine Oct 16 '15 at 15:23
  • @Cerberus Yes, niemand ‘noone, nobody’ and jemand ‘someone, somebody’ are usually inflected in contemporary German: +en Acc, +em Dat, +es Gen. They are of course related to the neutral 3rd person singular pronoun man ‘one’ (or ‘you’) and the noun Mann ‘man, male’. – Crissov Oct 16 '15 at 15:31
  • My Anglo-Saxon isn't good enough to be sure who the "Normen" were: were they Normans, - i.e. French, or Northmen - i.e. the "Northumbrians" or "Norsemen" [actually Danes] of Tostig's army? – alephzero Oct 17 '15 at 01:43
  • @alephzero the OED suggests that they are North men. But etymologically that's the same as the Normans. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Oct 17 '15 at 02:03
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Another way of saying it- a man from France is called a Frenchman, and many of them are referred to collectively as FrenchMEN. A man from Germany (we see here with the "y" that "man" is included as a coincidence- you can't take it as "many from Ger" either...) would be called a Germanman and many would be Germanmen. I think they might have said it back in WWII, but I could be wrong.

Ron Kyle
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