Nearly all nouns have different singular and plural forms. I have one cat; he has two cats. I ate five apples; he had one apple. Nouns with a plural and a singular form are called variable nouns. Most variable nouns form the plural by taking an -s at the end. The added -s is called [...][...]
Archive for the ‘spelling’ Category
September 24th, 2009 - 5:56 pm § in mysteries of english, old english, plurals, spelling, word origins
How many nouns?
The English Alphabet
Yesterday we saw how English spelling has changed over time. But what about the English alphabet? Have we always written in the same way? The answer is, of course, no – the alphabet has changed several times over the years. The earliest written texts we have of English were in Anglo-Saxon rune[...]
September 2nd, 2009 - 1:49 pm § in etymological spelling, etymology, mysteries of english, pronunciation, spelling
Renaissance Spelling
Did you ever wonder why English has such a strange spelling system? There are countless reasons for this, but borrowing another language’s spelling rules is a major one. Throughout history, it was been in fashion to borrow aspects of language and culture from other admired countries. In Renais[...]