Chapter 3
One Cool and One Hot Topic: Forming Plurals of Nouns and Pronouns
Singular and plural nouns are not a hot topic. People sometimes misspell them or mess up an irregular form, but that's about it. In this chapter, I help you avoid these errors by providing singular nouns that you turn into plurals.
Pronouns, on the other hand, have been a hot topic for a long time — centuries, to be exact. In fact, the 2019 Merriam-Webster Dictionary word of the year was they. I discuss the shifting meanings of they, them, their, and theirs in “A Note about Pronouns” in the introduction to this book. Here, I ask you to sort singular and plural pronouns, so you can correctly match pronouns with the words they represent.
The Questions You’ll Work On
In this chapter, you work on questions that cover the following concepts:
Forming plurals of common and proper nouns, both regular and irregular
Creating plural forms of hyphenated and compound words
Tackling difficult pronouns such as everything, one, either, all, some, that, which, who, and so forth
What to Watch Out For
Keep these points in mind when you’re answering the questions in this chapter:
Most nouns form the plural by adding the letter s. For nouns ending in ch, sh, x, s, and z, add es.
Nouns ending in a y change the y to i and add es if the letter preceding the y is a consonant (any letter except a, e, i, o, or u).
Add s or es to the most important word in a hyphenated or compound noun.
These pronouns are always singular: I, me, my, he, his, she, her, hers, one, everyone, everything, everybody, no one, nothing, nobody, someone, something, somebody, either, neither, each, other, and another.
These pronouns are always plural: our, ours, few, both, several, and many.
The pronouns you, your, yours, they, them, their, and theirs may be either singular or plural. (See “A Note about Pronouns” in the introduction for more information about they, them, their and theirs.)
Relative pronouns (that, which, who) are singular if they refer to singular nouns or pronouns and plural if they refer to plural nouns or pronouns.
These pronouns can be either singular or plural: all, any, most, some, and none. If one of these pronouns refers to a plural (for example, all of the shows, in which all refers to shows), the pronoun is plural. If the pronoun refers to a singular (for example, most of the air, in which most refers to air), the pronoun is singular.
Forming Plural Nouns
151–165 What is the correct plural form of these nouns?
151. stitch, telephone, tax
152. dye, splash, sandal
153. tomato, catch, mug
154. monkey, turkey, baby
155. zoo, success, edge
156. child, woman, man
157. deer, elephant, month
158. light, batch, biography
159. microphone, jelly, virus
160. delivery, essay, wife
161. Smith, Jones, O’Toole
162. leaf, pitch, copy
163. son-in-law, kangaroo, tooth
164. alumnus, mass medium, Woods
165. species, statistic, vice president
Sorting Singular and Plural Pronouns
166–195 Identify the singular (S) and/or plural (P) pronouns in the sentence.
166. Isaac asked his aunt to reduce her workload, but she refused.
167. As the children opened their presents, they told Santa how great his selections were.
168. We must apply sunscreen to our arms, according to my mother.
169. “Where is your sneaker?” asked the babysitter as he searched the room I share with my little sister.
170. “Your yoga class will be delayed an hour,” I announced when the students had gathered in front of their lockers.
171. A friend of mine wants to go on vacation with Molly and Angie, but they prefer to travel by themselves.
172. The cookies are in his pocket; I saw them myself.
173. The football coach remarked, “Everyone is counting on you,” but I was too stressed to play.
174. Something is wrong with the computer because it blinks constantly and flashes a warning sign every hour.
175. Several of the engineers have examined the platform and declared it safe, but when someone screamed, everyone ran.
176. One of the books has an index, but those on the top shelf do not, so we use them infrequently.
177. Both of us entered the international math competition; however, no one from our country won.
178. Neither of my uncles attended the graduation ceremony, so the principal mailed a diploma to both.
179. The talk show host directed the question to the audience, but someone on stage answered it anyway.
180. All of the birds flew to the pond, but most of the water had evaporated, and they soon left.
181. Either of the restaurants is fine with me if anyone would like to stop for a snack.
182. Arthur located most of the films, but a few were hard to find, so we had to substitute others.
183. The hungry man asked me to give him some of my sandwiches.
184. Someone rang the bell, but no one was there when Judy opened the door, expecting to see her brother.
185. Everyone was required to bring a swimsuit to camp, but Anna forgot to pack hers.
186. All of the orange juice spilled, but no one wiped the table until Billy called the manager and asked for help.
187. Each of Bobby’s bicycles is missing one wheel, but Bobby thinks both of the bikes can be repaired.
188. Much of Gene’s trouble stems from his reliance on everyone’s admiration.
189. Sharla and Alex like one tattoo but hate the other; they have mixed opinions about mine, a blue star.
190. The shoes that Mark bought weren’t comfortable, but they were more stylish than anything else he purchased yesterday.
191. Someone who should know better washed my best pair of pants in hot water.
192. The branches that tapped on the window made too much noise, so I trimmed them.
193. While she waited to hear the winner’s name announced, Lulu, who had bought three lottery tickets, crossed