0

When would you use fishes instead of fish? The same goes for fruits and any other word where a different plural form exists but the singular is most commonly used for plural. I am looking for a sentence where the singular form would be wrong and the explicit plural form must be used instead.

The following pages do not answer my question:

Irregular plurality situations in English

When is it correct to not use the irregular form for a plural? e.g. mouses vs. mice (fish & fishes)

Community
  • 1
CJ Dennis
  • 5,115
  • 7
  • 34
  • 67
  • 1
    How many sentences with fishes do you know? Name just one and chances are you've got your answer. Like, try saying "if wishes were fish" and be done. – RegDwigнt Apr 09 '15 at 13:00
  • 3
    This might be better asked over at [ELL.SE], but I can give you some high-level indications here. First, the situation you describe only happens with nouns that have a mass noun (uncountable) form. There is 1 fish, but there are also 2 fish, and 3 fish... there is 1 sheep, but there are 2 sheep, 3 sheep, etc. We tend to pluralize these types of words rarely, but when we do it is to highlight or emphasize different kinds or categories: "The Carribean sea is full of many fishes, of all different colors, kinds, and species."; "The waters* of the Atlantic and Pacific meet in ..*". – Dan Bron Apr 09 '15 at 13:02
  • Wikipedia states: As a general rule, game or other animals are often referred to in the singular for the plural in a sporting context: "He shot six brace of pheasant", "Carruthers bagged a dozen tiger last year", whereas in another context such as zoology or tourism the regular plural would be used. [But *?London zoo has six tiger.] // Can you give an example of a plural (not mass) usage of fruit? (eg ... 3 fruit ...) – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '15 at 13:59
  • @DanBron Hold on a minute, water doesn't have an irregular plural .... – Araucaria - Him Apr 09 '15 at 15:28
  • @Araucaria I couldn't tell you if a plural was irregular if it were wearing an ostrich suit and screaming obscenities, but I know the word waters exists. – Dan Bron Apr 09 '15 at 15:40
  • @DanBron You can have 2 sheep but not 2 sheeps. You can have lots of apples or lots of fruit on a tree and possibly lots of fruits but it sounds better in the singular form to describe multiple fruit. – CJ Dennis Apr 09 '15 at 15:46
  • 2
    @DanBron A regular plural is just one where there's an 's' on the end - unlike fish which can be plural just as it stands: I have three fish. Fish isn't a mass noun there it's just an unusual plural form which happens to be identical to the singular :) – Araucaria - Him Apr 09 '15 at 15:47
  • 1
    @EdwinAshworth Thanks for editing the title! Unfortunately, I don't understand it any more! It seems to be saying that I'm looking for a sentence where you can't use "fishes" whereas I'm looking for a sentence where you must say "fishes" and not "fish". – CJ Dennis Apr 09 '15 at 15:53
  • No. 'Fishes' and 'fish' are both accepted plural forms of the singular noun 'fish'. 'Fish' is the uninflected plural variant; 'fishes' is the normally inflected (add -s or -es) plural variant. // 'He lost ten stone' is accepted, but not 'he threw ten stone'. These are said to be the same word in the dictionaries I've checked in. Likewise the measure 'foot' may be used in place of the plural 'feet', but not when talking about the body part. This is not the case with 'we caught ten pike' and 'the castle armoury contains ten pikes': these are homonyms. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '15 at 21:15
  • There are actually not very many situations where there are alternative plural forms available anyway. When one of them is actually identical to the singular form, the number is further reduced. Care has to be taken separating out noncount usages (which usually take singular agreement, but don't really have singulars or plurals). (A fish // two fish or fishes // some fish has dropped off my plate. A fruit (rarely used for a piece of fruit) // two fruits (apple and banana) // some fruit has spilled over the edge of the pan.) – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '15 at 22:09
  • @Edwin Ashworth Carruthers himself should be shot, stuffed and mounted. But that is not pertinent to the question: would anyone after the end of the Raj say he bagged eight tiger as opposed to eight tigers? – ab2 Feb 05 '16 at 04:41
  • @ab2 One is allowed to write period literature; one is allowed to quote pertinent examples, especially to show the registers where usages might be encountered. 'Where would you use' is quite non-prescriptive. However, if you'd prefer a more up-to-date example, 'Rangers shot over a dozen elk last year'. Never 'elks', which is, however, available as a plural form. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 05 '16 at 11:43
  • "Each man fishes with his own fishing rod" – Max Williams Aug 03 '16 at 08:41
  • @MaxWilliams In your sentence fishes is a verb, not a noun. – CJ Dennis Aug 03 '16 at 13:33
  • Related. – tchrist May 14 '23 at 18:03

3 Answers3

1

"Trout, greyling, and char are technically all salmons."
"Squids is a video game."
"Many fishes and snakes move by contracting muscles in waves down the body, which bends the body to each side."

Greg Lee
  • 17,406
-2

If you are talking about different varieties of the thing, use the inflected plural form.

The aquarium houses many kinds of fishes.

I tasted several new tropical fruits.

In all other cases, stick with the uninflected form of the noun:

You should eat lots of fruit/fish

EDIT: I remember reading about this in an Oxford dictionary (printed). I found this online resource to corroborate my answer.

Tushar Raj
  • 21,025
  • 2
    No. This is not contrasting plural-form plural nouns with singular-form plural nouns, but plural-form plural nouns with mass usages. You can't eat 3 fruit, and 'eat lots of fish' is like 'drink lots of water' – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '15 at 13:45
  • @EdwinAshworth: Not sure what your objection is. You can't eat 3 fruit, just like you can't move 3 furniture. You eat 3 pieces of fruit and move 3 pieces of furniture. But if you eat 3 fruits, they can't all be apples. You're talking about different kinds. Yes, 'eat lots of fish' is like 'drink lots of water', but what's your point? I could say it's not like 'eat lots of vegetables'. – Tushar Raj Apr 09 '15 at 20:05
  • 2
    Your source has the incorrect 'The word Fruit is a noun. The word is an exception where the noun is both countable and uncountable. So the plural of Fruit can be either Fruit OR Fruits.' Uncountable nouns (more accurately, nouns not being used in count senses) don't 'have plurals'. Patiences? 'Fish' can be uncountable (I eat lots of fish), singular count (What a big fish!) or plural count (There are seven fish in this pond). OP is asking whether the plural sense of 'fish' and the other plural 'fishes' are always interchangeable. Similarly for other such pairs (salmon / salmons etc). – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '15 at 20:56
  • @EdwinAshworth: That's what I answered. They're not interchangeable. The plural 'fishes'/'fruits' is used when talking about varieties and the plural sense of 'fish'/'fruit' is used otherwise. – Tushar Raj Apr 09 '15 at 20:59
  • 'The plural of fruit can be ... fruit' is incorrect. We never speak of three fruit. Also your 'In all other cases, stick with the uninflected plural form of the noun:

    You should eat lots of fruit/fish' means that you think that these examples are of the uninflected plural form. In fact, they're not: they're examples of the mass usage. As stated, there isn't an uninflected plural form of 'fruit'. // 'The aquarium houses many kinds of fish' is not incorrect, either.

     – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '15 at 21:03
  • @EdwinAshworth: Dude, you're relentless. You can think of the plural of uncountable sense of fruit to be fruit and countable sense of fruit to be fruits. See the first two examples: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/learner/fruit – Tushar Raj Apr 09 '15 at 21:09
  • 'You can think of the plural of [the] uncountable sense of fruit ...' is really worrying. And notice that your latest reference assumes that you will treat the count and non-count usages differently, not as hybrids. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '15 at 21:22
  • This treatment from Pearson-Longman (tweaked) is clearer: Fish can be a singular count noun, and its usual plural is also fish. Fruit as a singular count noun has the plural of fruits. For example:

    Bob and I went fishing, and we caught 17 fish.

    There are four or five fish swimming around in my fish tank.

    On the tropical island, there are wonderful fruits growing all over.

    You should eat three different fruits per day....

     – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '15 at 21:29
  • 1
    However, both fish and fruit more commonly appear as noncount nouns, which do not have plurals [and arguably do not have singulars, though they are usually identical in form to the corresponding singular count noun]. For example, you would say:

    I had a little fish and a salad for dinner.

    He eats a lot of meat, but he doesn't eat much fish.

    Fruit is very good for you, and vegetables are too.

    There isn't much fresh fruit available at this time of year.

     – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '15 at 21:30
  • @EdwinAshworth: I don't know why you hate my answer. Your source clearly states: 'You use fruits to refer to different species of fruit.' and 'You can use fishes to refer to different species of fish, particularly in a scientific context:' That's what I said. – Tushar Raj Apr 09 '15 at 21:39
  • The 'can' (= 'may') as opposed to your implied 'must' makes quite a difference. But I repeat: 'In all other cases, stick with the uninflected plural form of the noun: You should eat lots of fruit/fish'. But these usages of 'fruit' and 'fish' aren't plural; they're mass usages). – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '15 at 21:59
  • 2
    "The aquarium houses many kinds of fish" is perfectly acceptable. As is "I tasted several new kinds of tropical fruit". – Peter Shor May 09 '15 at 22:45
-2

There are times, particularly in "legalese", where you will see the use of persons instead of people. I don't claim to know why. If you need illustrations, I'm sure I can find some in short order.

Paul Rowe
  • 4,220