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There are some irregular plurals in English (child/children, goose/geese), but all of the ones I know of share the same root word.

In some languages, there are some irregular pairs where the singular form does not have the same root as the plural form, such as in Russian (год/лет, человек/люди).

Are there any such irregular plurals in English?

tchrist
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Peter Olson
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    In what sense would any such singular/plural pair be the same word if they didn't have the same derivation? Why can't I point to "God" and deities as a pair of different words that from my point of view are singular/plural designations of the same referent(s)? – FumbleFingers Jul 11 '12 at 21:07
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    The technical term for this is suppletion. Linked from that Wikipedia article you will find the corresponding Wiktionary category, one of whose subcategories is English nouns with suppletive plurals. – RegDwigнt Jul 11 '12 at 21:07
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    @FumbleFingers Because the plural of god is gods. If one is counting gods, he is unlikely to say one god, two deities, whereas if he were counting people, there would be no such weirdness in saying one person, two people. – Peter Olson Jul 11 '12 at 21:18
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    @RegDwight ΒВB♦: Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that in English at least, suppletion (not a word recognised by my spell-checker) simply applies to things like be, am, is, are, were. I personally don't think these are different forms of "a word". – FumbleFingers Jul 11 '12 at 21:37
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    @Peter Olson: My point is that there's "a word" person, which has a regular plural. There's another word people, which can substitute for persons (but of course it also has a valid plural peoples). I simply don't see what OP is getting at when he asks for "a word" where the singular and plural have no shared etymology. There are a few English contexts (mainly in respect of very common verbs like "to be") where the same meaning is conveyed by words with different roots, but for me, that means they are not the same word. – FumbleFingers Jul 11 '12 at 21:46
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    ...in short, this is not a constructive question. It simply asks for a list of word-pairs where one is more common for singular, and the other for plural. There are lots of those. – FumbleFingers Jul 11 '12 at 21:47
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    @FumbleFinger I'm not sure this is a list question because OP is only asking if there are these special word, not what they are. I vote up. –  Jul 11 '12 at 22:07
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    @FumbleFingers "In linguistics and etymology, suppletion is traditionally understood as the use of one word as the inflected form of another word when the two words are not cognate." I can't vouch for the truth of this; it's the lead-in of the Wikipedia article. – MetaEd Jul 11 '12 at 22:18
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    In some circles the plural of anecdote is data. – emory Jul 11 '12 at 22:30
  • @Carlo_R: Your use of the term "special word" again imputes some meaning to the word word which I simply don't accept as constructive. What's the plural of "toast", for example? Or the singular of "furniture"? As I said, there are some vestigial cases where different words* with different etymologies* have the same meaning but are used in different contexts (forms of what we call the "verb" to be, for example). But fairly obviously to me at least, these are not in fact aspects of the same "word" in any meaningful sense. – FumbleFingers Jul 11 '12 at 22:31
  • @MetaEd: I don't argue with that definition. English has a word good, but it doesn't have the "words" gooder or goodest, for example. In practice, in English, suppletion only seems to apply to a handful of ultra-common verbs and adjectives. So far as I'm concerned, the situation in respect of nouns is summed up by this wiktionary page - and I don't accept their only example (person/people) as two aspects of the same "word" in the first place. – FumbleFingers Jul 11 '12 at 22:43
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    @FumbleFingers, I disagree. The OP is clearly asking about suppletion, though he doesn't know what to call it, and as such the question is interesting an answerable. – JSBձոգչ Jul 11 '12 at 23:18
  • @JSBձոգչ: I think suppletion is a word which arises "after the fact", where a single area of semantic space is "colonised" by different words from different "languages" (dialects, whatever) being assimilated into standard English. Rarely, it happens that a word with one origin gains ascendancy in one context (past plural verb form were, for example), where another (present singular am) survives in another context. Language tends towards regular inflexions, and only really common words (a few verbs, and even fewer adjectives) can resist that tendency. All you can do is list them. – FumbleFingers Jul 11 '12 at 23:35
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    Great question...I don't know what @FumbleFingers problem is. – Mitch Jul 12 '12 at 00:57
  • @Mitch: In truth, I think my problem is simply the implication that go/went, is/were, and person/people (the only plausible noun put forward thus far) are different forms of the same word. They aren't - they're different words (with different etymologies) that happen to cluster around a single semantic space that in other circumstances might be covered by a single word with different inflections. In short, my problem is with OP's implicit definition of "word". – FumbleFingers Jul 12 '12 at 01:02
  • ...given OP has put forward an example in Russian, perhaps he would consider finger/thumb to be two different forms of what to a Russian are arguably the same word. I think in practice with nouns either the meanings of two closely-related words will diverge, or one will fall into disuse. The chances that one will only survive in the singular, and the other only in the plural, are negligible - but I'm sure all nouns that can meaningfully have singular/plural forms do in fact have them. – FumbleFingers Jul 12 '12 at 01:11
  • @FumbleFingers: I think that is cavilling about what 'word' means. you have an X, what do you call it? You have more than one X, what do you call that. If X is 'person', more than one is (most naturally) called 'people'. By that informal but useful measure, 'cow'/'cattle' might work (but 'cows' is more likely). – Mitch Jul 12 '12 at 01:40
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    @Mitch: So your definition of "a word" is "what you call something", and you think it's still "a word" regardless of whether you're talking about one or several of it? I think we must agree to differ, since my definition is more like "a symbol commonly understood by speakers of a language". By my definition, person/people are two different words, whereas person/persons and people/peoples are each two different forms of the same word. Which are in any case at best only close synonyms in certain contexts. – FumbleFingers Jul 12 '12 at 02:09
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    @Fum: I understand your point, but what you are basically saying is that you think suppletion is a misguided concept, because "go" and "went" just aren't the same "word" to you. Whether not they are one "word" or not is open to (a not very interesting terminology) debate. In suppletion, what is meant is that you would use the pair "go"-"went" just the same way as "move"-"moved", i.e. the relation between each pair is very similar. The question is, does English have such noun pairs (or trios etc.)? The answer is: perhaps "person"-"people", but otherwise none that we can think of. Seems valid. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Jul 12 '12 at 02:22
  • @Cerberus: I do accept the concept of suppletion. I'm just saying it's a way of describing what happens when two words occupy the same (or at least, overlapping) semantic space. Normally what happens then unless one falls into disuse is that the actual meanings diverge. In a few cases, the split cuts across grammatical rather than semantic boundaries - practically all either verb tenses, or adjectival superlatives. The real question is why doesn't it happen with nouns in English? With person/people the standard plurals are valid, so I find it marginal compared to good, gooder, goodest. – FumbleFingers Jul 12 '12 at 04:05
  • ...anyway, I've done with my rant about "word". Apart from that I do think it's interesting that the phenomenon is so rare/doesn't exist in respect of noun plurality. Though presumably at some point in the past it did exist for pig/pork, cow/beef, sheep/mutton before English settled on those second forms to mean the butchered/cooked versions. So there's enough in it for me to vote for re-opening. – FumbleFingers Jul 12 '12 at 04:26
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    @FumbleFingers: I can understand that you should find person/people marginal. At first you seemed to be averse to any noun suppletion (perhaps I misunderstood your point), but I think we are now agreed. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Jul 12 '12 at 08:26

7 Answers7

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Notwithstanding that I voted to close, I'm going to stick my neck out and say there are no "English nouns with suppletive plurals". With the possible exception of person/people per Wiktionary link.

But I would point out that both those are singular words in their own right, with regular plurals (persons/peoples). It just so happens that people is often used as a plural anyway (similar to one fish, two fish).

It's also worth noting that person can be used in contexts where people can't - for example, "He carries a pistol on his person", but not *"They carry pistols on their people". Correspondingly, "The good people of London welcome all to the Olympics", but not *"The good persons of London..."

Valid examples of suppletion in English consist of a few common verbs (to be - am, is, were, are) and adjectives (good - better, best). The phenomenon can only occur with common words, because with uncommon words the natural tendency of speakers to "regularise" inflections will triumph.

FumbleFingers
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  • The other common verb that is formed from two distinct older ones is to go, which once upon a time stole its past form, went, from to wend. Interestingly, the two most common verbs in other western languages than English that show this are again to be and to go. They also have irregular degrees of adjectives in the same places, going from bad to worse, so to speak. – tchrist Jul 12 '12 at 00:13
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    @Daniel: I'm in two minds now as to whether I still endorse my original closevote. I personally don't consider am, is, were, are or go, went to be variants of "a word", so I guess I'm just stamping my foot a bit over the "wording" of the question. Disregarding person/people, I think with nouns the closest we have is things like cow/beef, pig/pork, sheep/mutton. The English peasants had their own "animal" words, but they ended up using the French equivalents solely for the cooked meat their Norman overlords demanded be served at table. – FumbleFingers Jul 12 '12 at 00:28
  • @tchrist: Yes, I'm sure you're right that other languages have this same phenomenon - and that the two ultra-common verbs to be and to go are always going to be likely candidates. Such irregularities can only survive when they're so common everyone knows the "correct" form. And if some peasant says "I be a peasant" - well, we know he's a peasant before he even gets the last word out, don't we! – FumbleFingers Jul 12 '12 at 00:34
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    Big +1 for going on the "Evidence of absence" argument. I believe you are correct, mainly in part because English nouns are particularly mutable, i.e., nouns that should have been or were traditionally irregular tend to morph into regular forms. – nicholas Jul 12 '12 at 01:02
  • @nicholas: "mutable" looks like a good word in this context. It's my opinion that English (and probably all languages) tends to move towards regular inflections. Which may be part of why many people leap at the chance to speak of computer mouses, and most of us call our male siblings brothers rather than brethren. – FumbleFingers Jul 12 '12 at 01:23
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The following pairs have plurals with stems different from those of the singular forms:

Personal pronouns

I and we

he/she/it and they

Possessive pronouns

mine and ours

his/hers and theirs

Possessive determiners

my and our

his/her/its and their.

Barrie England
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I think person/people is as close (or far) as it gets.

Tolerance72
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    What was the link going to be? :) – Daniel Jul 11 '12 at 21:05
  • As @Malvolio points out that person-people is often quoted as a suppletive noun, it is not strictly so. Both are distinct nouns with distinct plurals - people just happens to be a collective or group noun. This is analogous to pig / swine and cow / cattle. – nicholas Jul 12 '12 at 00:58
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    @nicholas: It isn't analogous because swine is not the standard plural for pig and cattle is not the standard plural for cow. But people is the standard plural for person. If you said "one car, two cars; one pig, two ..." most English speakers would say pigs, not swine. If you said "one person, two ..." most English speakers would say people, not persons. – David Schwartz Jul 12 '12 at 08:21
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    @DavidSchwartz, I suppose you are right. Although person / people is historically analogous to pig / swine (cow / cattle is a different matter altogether), in modern usage it's meaning has changed. For consistent connotation, we have to say "3 people, 2 people, 1 person," because "1 people" means something different. The word "person" does not have this form of semantic switching - "3 persons, 2 persons, 1 person" is perfectly valid - but by convention, modern English speakers do not use it. – nicholas Jul 12 '12 at 12:54
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Person/people.

Both words have additional plurals as well.

Mark Beadles
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    Surely the actual plural of "person" is "persons". As in the legal standard "by persons unknown". – FumbleFingers Jul 11 '12 at 21:03
  • As well, the plural of "people" is "peoples," as in "the people of Spain" vs. "the peoples of Europe." – Andy Jul 11 '12 at 21:21
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    I don't agree with the distinction you make about the "actual" plural. There are different plurals used in different situations. In legal contexts one can find all sorts of uncommon constructions. And "people" has additional meanings. But if you ask a native speaker in normal circumstances, they will call one individual 'one person' and a pair of them 'two people'. – Mark Beadles Jul 11 '12 at 23:06
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    @FumbleFingers: Try it. Say to someone, "One car, two cars. One person, two ..." I'm pretty sure you'll hear "people" a lot more than "persons". Though "persons" is not incorrect, it has been almost completely supplanted by "people" as the plural for "person". – David Schwartz Jul 12 '12 at 23:47
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Cow has three plurals: cows (which comes from "cow"), cattle (from from Anglo-Norman catel, meaning "chattel"), and kine (which comes from ku, also the ancient root of "cow", so might not count).

Michael Lorton
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It's not used very often nowadays, but there's cow and kine.

J.R.
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    Those appear to have the same derivation. – WAF Jul 11 '12 at 20:55
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    Still the same root, though, like sow and swine. The plural is the same as in oxen and children, and the vowel change is ordinary umlaut, like mouse - mice. – John Lawler Jul 11 '12 at 20:58
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    @WAF & John L.: Perhaps so; it was the closest second example I could offer, and seemed worthy of a mention at least. – J.R. Jul 11 '12 at 20:58
  • Wow, missed it by that much : "cattle" – Michael Lorton Jul 11 '12 at 21:46
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    Erm... etymonline says genitive plural of M.E. kye "cows," from O.E. cy (gen. cyna), plural of cu "cow." To me, that means they have "the same derivation". – FumbleFingers Jul 12 '12 at 00:50
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    I'm not 100% sure, but I believe "cow and kine" is the answer to a quirky trivia question: What is the only singular/plural word pair that share no common letters? (I realize this doesn't refute the fact that they share the same root, but thought it was interesting to note). – J.R. Jul 12 '12 at 02:06
  • They do have the same derivation. In any case, 'kine' doesn't exist to fill any gap created by the absence of any other plural for 'cow'. It's just an old form. – Barrie England Jul 12 '12 at 14:55
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Cow

Kine - archaic, but still occasionally used plural. If you are connected to agriculture, you might hear it more than once a year.

Al Black
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