Why English is Hard to Learn: a Lesson on Pluralization

Here is a fun poem that satirically points out the intricacies of the English language. While you read the poem keep an eye on the ways the italicized words are pluralized.

Taken from: http://www.commonsenseevaluation.com/tag/poems/

Did you notice how not all of the nouns and pronouns follow the same rules of pluralization? This can cause confusion when someone learns the English language because not all words that look similar follow the same pluralization rules. A noun gets pluralized when there is two or  more of one item.  The most basic way to pluralize a regular noun (person, place or thing)  is to add an s  to the end of a word. Example: cat becomes cats, tree becomes trees, and book becomes books.  An irregular noun is a little more trickier and follows rules that are specific to the word. In the poem above, we saw irregular nouns like goose, mouse and foot, become pluralized into geese, mice and feet.  The Guelph Public Library has many resources that teach how to pluralize both regular and irregular nouns. I really enjoyed “Your Foot’s on my Feet!” by Marvin Terban.  While the audience is meant for children, I thought it explained nouns in a fun and thorough way that could be enjoyed and understood by an audience of all ages. Place a hold today!