Grammar Practice in Context - David Bolton, Noel Goodey 1997
61 Nouns (singular and plural)
Quick reference
• Most nouns have a plural ending in -s or -es.
a girl two girls, a box two boxes, a church two churches
• Common irregular plural forms: man > men, woman > women, person > people, child > children, foot > feet, tooth > teeth, mouse > mice
• The plural of compound nouns: a car radio two car radios
• Some numbers don’t change in the plural.
two dozen three hundred five thousand twelve million
• Some nouns look singular but are used with a plural verb.
People are interested. The police are coming.
• Collective or group nouns can be followed by a singular verb (if we think of the group as a single unit) or by a plural verb (if we think of the group as a number of individuals).
His family is very big. His family are all very tall.
The government has changed the law. The government have discussed the situation.
• When we think of a quantity of money, etc. as a single unit, we use a singular verb.
£500 is a lot of money. (not £500 are a lot of money.)
10 kilometres isn’t far. (not 10 kilometres aren’t far.)
• Some nouns are only plural. The most common are: clothes, contents, earnings, headquarters, outskirts, surroundings, thanks, valuables; glasses, pants, knickers, pyjamas, jeans, scissors, shorts, tights, trousers.
His clothes are new. My glasses are broken. These jeans are too small.
• Some nouns end in -s but are followed by a singular verb. The most common are: news, politics, mathematics, physics, economics.
The news isn’t good. Mathematics is his best subject.
1 Put the words in italics into the plural, using the words in brackets.
The millionaire industrialist Alexander Crenshaw died last night.
1 During his life he had an American wife. (two)
2 He had a child with each of them. (three)
3 He had an electronics factory in Scotland. (two)
4 He owned a computer company in Taiwan. (two)
5 He had a large house in England. (two)
6 He had a party for his staff every year. (two)
7 He employed a man and a woman to look after his gorilla, (three) (two) (six)
8 He also had a person to look after his pet monkey, (two) (twelve)
2 Complete the sentences with the plural form of the word in brackets. Sometimes a plural form is not necessary.
Fifteen (1 man) ... and their (2 wife) ..., four single (3 woman) ... and five (4 child) ..., two of them (5 baby) ..., were on holiday in the south of Spain. They booked seats on a sight-seeing tour of the old (6 city) ... and (7 church) ... of Andalucia. They each paid three (8 thousand) ... pesetas for the trip. The trip was a disaster! Two (9 coach) ... arrived at the hotel. Neither was big enough. A third coach arrived and took them up into the (10 mountain) ... and (11 valley) ... of the Sierra Nevada. An hour later this coach ran out of fuel. While they were waiting for help they had a picnic. ’We had a few (12 tomato) ... and a few (13 loaf) ... of bread, so we made some (14 tomato sandwich) ... We also had a few (15 bottle) ... of water,’ one passenger reported. No help arrived so all the passengers helped to push the coach for over eight (16 hundred) ... metres to the nearest petrol station. Another passenger commented, ’The (17 fly) ... and (18 mosquito) ... were terrible and several of us had very sore (19 foot) ...’ Then the driver became ill. A passenger who was a coach driver in England drove them back to Malaga. Unfortunately he had never driven on the right before and by the time they got back they’d had four minor (20 crash) ..., two old (21 lady) ... had swallowed their false (22 tooth) ... and several (23 person) ... had been repeatedly sick. All, however, agreed they had had the trip of their (24 life) ... and exchanged (25 address) ... so they could go on another coach trip together the following year.
3 Read the text below and look carefully at each line. Some of the lines are correct, and some have a mistake in them. If a line is correct put a tick (Z) after it. If a line has a mistake in it, underline the mistake and write the correction in the brackets.
Example: I met a very interesting man on the train. 200 kilometres aren’t a long way.
1 And two hours isn’t a long time but in that time I learnt a lot about him.
2 Physics were his main subject at university. Then he’d written a book about
3 mathematics which were his real interest. His earnings from the book were very
4 small - £5,000 a year aren’t a lot of money. But for years he’d lived on this income.
5 He certainly looked poor. His glasses were broken. His clothes were all very old
6 and his trousers was torn.
7 He said he didn’t care what his surroundings was like.
8 The news on radio and TV weren’t of any interest to him.
9 People were of no interest to him either.
10 Even his family was total strangers to him.
11 The only thing that interested him was ideas.
(isn't)
(...)
(...)
(...) ...
4 Write a paragraph about yourself and your family using the plural of as many of these words as possible. Check your answers with a teacher.
man
woman
child
grandchild
person
wife
baby