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Writing Tip: Grammar Rodeo #6


Renee Stevens

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Who's ready for another Grammar Rodeo? Today's Grammar Rodeo is sorta a Part 2 of last weeks. A big thanks to Cia for providing these for the blog. They are a great learning tool and include some great tips and tricks to help authors remember what is best to use. Hopefully you'll find Grammar Rodeo #6 as informative as I did!

 


Grammar Rodeo #6

 


Plural Nouns

 

Last time we talked about plural verbs… now let’s talk about plural nouns. Remember how there are ‘regular’ forms and ‘irregular’ forms? Well, in nouns there are a LOT of both that dictate how you make a noun become plural.

 

Regular forms:
Adding s: This is the most common form of making a noun plural. Now let’s look at the other ways!
Example: Play becomes plays, book becomes books, poem becomes poems.
Adding es: You use es in words that end with ch, sh, x, or s.
Example: Ax becomes axes, church becomes churches, pass becomes passes
Adding ies: You use ies when a word ends in a consonant and y.
Example: Butterfly becomes butterflies, aviary becomes aviaries. (notice play is just s, since it ends with vowel and y, not a consonant)

 

Irregular Forms:
Nouns ending in o: Add es (Avocado becomes avocadoes)
Nouns containing oo: Double oo becomes double ee (eg: Foot becomes feet)
Nouns ending in f: Change f to v and and es (eg: Scarf becomes scarves)
Nouns ending in fe: Change fe to v and add es (eg: Knife becomes knives)
Nouns ending in us: Change us to i (eg: Octopus becomes octopi)

 

Now, many of these have exceptions. Plus you have nouns that stay the same like moose or mouse which becomes mice in a completely random change. As always, when in doubt… check the dictionary!

 

That vs. Which
Both that and which connect clauses in sentences. The difference is actually pretty easy to figure out. That connects clauses that are dependent on each other, where both parts of the sentence are needed to make sense. Which connects independent clauses, or those that are not essential to the sentence meaning.

 

Examples:
That: I’m allergic to the trees in the yard that bloom every spring.
Which: The trees in the yard, which bloom every spring, make me sneeze.

 

Exceptions! What grammar rule exists without these, right? As I mentioned in Grammar Rodeo #5, when you refer to people you use who instead of that. Of course, the exception to this is when you refer to a group—even if it’s a group of people.

 

Example:
The Secret Service team that flooded the building scared me.

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I would like to give out my sincere apologies to anyone who has to learn English as a second language. With all its endless exceptions, how do any of them figure it out? People who use it as a first language struggle with it!

 

Ugh!

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I would like to give out my sincere apologies to anyone who has to learn English as a second language. With all its endless exceptions, how do any of them figure it out? People who use it as a first language struggle with it!

 

Ugh!

 

Actually, i think it is the reverse; while english is very difficult to get "right", the language can be mangled quite badly and it is still comprehendable. Compare this to french, spanish or chinese and some very small errors will result in complete confusion. One qualifier; while the english, australian, south africans and new zealanders can translate broken english quite well, americans and some canadians really struggle. I would really like someone to 1) verify this and then 2) explain it.

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I don't have a problem translating broken English, but I think in part that's due to growing up with people who have different accents compared to the region I grew up in, plus I used to work with ventilator patients and you get very used to understanding speech that isn't quite right, body language, and just using plain ole intuition in a situation.

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Cia, how about the plural for roof and hoof?

 

One site says roof would be roofs, rooves (which is the term I learned), isn't used anymore. In fact, my spell check is underlining rooves. But hoofs AND hooves are correct for hoof.

 

Why the difference?

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Roof and roofs/rooves vs hoof and hoofs/hooves is just another example where English proves that root words mean nothing when it comes to irregular plurals. A good portion of the changes come from popular usage, which is why rooves has become roofs, but there's really no rhyme nor reason to why some words fall out of use and others don't. You either change with the times or fight them kicking and screaming. ;)

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@ aditus Neither German nor English are my first languages but I found German to be a much easier language to learn. I've been learning English since I was 4 years old but I can't say I have mastered it yet. That happens because of all these irregular forms (also because most of my sentences are fragments which I don't know how to fix. Maybe next Grammar Rodeo? :P).

 

 

I can say I still haven't completely understood That vs Which. I hope I figure it out some day.

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I've been learning English since I was 4 years old but I can't say I have mastered it yet.

Don't worry, you're not alone - as Mann said, most native English speakers haven't mastered it either :lol:

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I can say I still haven't completely understood That vs Which. I hope I figure it out some day.

 

I'm not convinced I have that one sorted out either. I hope my editors can keep me in line. :)

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It is interesting to me at how much English has become the second language of so many in the past 40 years.   When I first went overseas, most people from other countries had no English.  Now it is the go to language for tourists and business.  Unlike Canuck, I find most Americans and Canadians understand 'broken' English spoken by foreigners fairly well.  We do have some trouble with some regional American accents however...it is getting better as TV has pretty much evened out some of the more extreme ones.  

 

As far as the grammar rodeo; thanks to everyone who takes the time to provide some ready examples of English and its idiosyncrasies.  

 

P.S.  I still love hearing the queen's English spoken with the proper public school intonation and pronunciation. 

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I'm not convinced I have that one sorted out either. I hope my editors can keep me in line. :)

 

I don't get the which versus that difference and therefore bow to the editors that gently correct it and don't laugh at me.   To be fair, even if they laughed at me, I wouldn't get it. :) Thanks you wonderful people!

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I think the difference between your native language and a later learned language is, that your native language comes naturally to you and you think you don't have to bother about the grammatical rules so much. A learned language is in that respect easier, because you have a clean slate and just have to learn the rules and exceptions to the rules.

 

I am trying for some years now to teach an American my native language (Dutch) and only during the process realized how many exceptions to the rules my own language has, that I wasn't aware of. It is even harder to explain rules when you have to dissect the rule for yourself first.

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Okay. Joint in the debate I would have to say that even though I learnt English as a second language, I write it better than my native language. It just happened. I prefer speaking in my native language, but I write better English than my native language. Sigh.

 

I think this has a lot to do with the fact that English is bossy. It doesn't beg you to learn it, commands you to learn it. There are a lot of influences around that forced me to learn English. I had a wide range of English media available to me which facilities easy learning. The same, can't be said for Spanish which I am trying to learn.

 

So to answer Canuk's question, I think it's because English has basic structure, which if gotten right, comprehension can be achieved even if grammar rules and punctuation rules are thrown to the wind. I appreciate this point because my native language has more than 50 dialects, each with its own tone, accent and whatnot, but essentially, everybody understands everybody once they get the basics right.

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I think the difference between your native language and a later learned language is, that your native language comes naturally to you and you think you don't have to bother about the grammatical rules so much. A learned language is in that respect easier, because you have a clean slate and just have to learn the rules and exceptions to the rules.

 

I am trying for some years now to teach an American my native language (Dutch) and only during the process realized how many exceptions to the rules my own language has, that I wasn't aware of. It is even harder to explain rules when you have to dissect the rule for yourself first.

Being Dutch I know what a crazy language we have. We have so many words from different origin... read languages.

And that makes our language... (in my opinion) crazy...  with crazy grammar rules about with words like that. For example we have many words starting with oct or octo coming from (I think) Latin... but the in our stupid composed language... we write oktober instead of october.

 

And besides that we have a second (and much older) language in our country. Yes ... You guess right .. I come from that area... in my country.  a long time ago that language was spoken in the coastal areas from the North of (what is now) France till the North of Denmark.

 

And yes... it is like the Asterix and Obelix strip ... only a small area in our country ... LOL

 

Our crazy Dutch grammar rules make English look simple... but I often get confused by the (almost) same pronounciation of very different words. But do not get me wrong ... It does not mean I'm fluent in English because it is that simple...

 

Have fun.

AndyG.

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