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There are some pet fish of the same species, which 'fish's is to be used when asking what their names are? Would it be:

  • What are the fish's names?
  • What are the fishes' names?
  • What are the fish names?
3kstc
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Deidre
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  • Duplicate of closed question: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/114494/singular-plural-possessive-form-of-fish – David M Sep 26 '19 at 04:06
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    The answer is fish's. Fish is a singular and a plural. Therefore its possessive is also the same regardless. – David M Sep 26 '19 at 04:07
  • All three are correct, depending on your use of the word, your stylistic use of the possessive, and how you choose to phrase the sentence. – Jason Bassford Sep 29 '19 at 23:49

1 Answers1

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Background:

According to Dictionary.com plural of fish is fish.

This is correct if one is talking about a group or a school of fish of the same species.

However an aquarium filled with different species should be referred to as fishes as illustrated by Woodward English:

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Answering the Question:

Since the plural form of the same species of the fish remains fish. One would add an apostrophe to make it a singular possessives ie ’s as indicated by wiki. Thereby it will be fish's

Therefore, from the three options you would say:

What are the fish's names?

3kstc
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  • You didn't actually answer her question. It wasn't about the pluralization, but rather the possessive for the plural of fish. – David M Sep 26 '19 at 04:08
  • I improved it a bit.. – 3kstc Sep 26 '19 at 04:17
  • Much better. But, note that this question will likely be closed as the exact same question was closed in the past. So, you might be downvoted by some users. (Not my style) – David M Sep 26 '19 at 04:18