November 16, 2016 —John Koster
Any words, or word endings, in the following table will not be affected by the singular
method. This is either because the resulting word is already singular, or because there is no inflection available. Word endings are denoted by the prefix *
:
Amoyese | Borghese | Congoese | Faroese | Foochowese |
Genevese | Genoese | Gilbertese | Hottentotese | Kiplingese |
Kongoese | Lucchese | Maltese | Nankingese | Niasese |
Pekingese | Piedmontese | Pistoiese | Portuguese | Sarawakese |
Shavese | Vermontese | Wenchowese | Yengeese | * deer |
* fish | * lese | * measles | * media | * mese |
* nese | * ois | * pox | * rese | * sheep |
* ss | bison | bream | breeches | britches |
buffalo | cantus | carp | chassis | clippers |
cod | coitus | contretemps | corps | debris |
diabetes | djinn | eland | elk | equipment |
flounder | gallows | graffiti | headquarters | herpes |
hijinks | information | innings | jackanapes | mackerel |
mews | moose | mumps | news | nexus |
pincers | pliers | proceedings | rabies | rhinoceros |
rice | salmon | scissors | sea bass | sea-bass |
series | shears | siemens | species | staff |
swine | testes | trousers | trout | tuna |
whiting | wildebeest |
In addition to words that are not inflected, the method also handles some special cases. These are generally words that do not have a clear pragmatic method of handling the inflection of converting the word to its singular equivalent:
Plural Form | Singular Form |
---|---|
atlases | atlas |
beefs | beef |
brothers | brother |
cafes | cafe |
children | child |
cookies | cookie |
corpuses | corpus |
cows | cow |
criteria | criterion |
curves | curve |
foes | foe |
ganglions | ganglion |
genies | genie |
genera | genus |
graffiti | graffito |
hoofs | hoof |
humans | human |
loaves | loaf |
men | man |
monies | money |
mongooses | mongoose |
moves | move |
mythoi | mythos |
niches | niche |
numina | numen |
occiputs | occiput |
octopuses | octopus |
opuses | opus |
oxen | ox |
penises | penis |
people | person |
sexes | sex |
soliloquies | soliloquy |
testes | testis |
trilbys | trilby |
turfs | turf |
waves | wave |
∎
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