Singular And plural…?

This is a question my five year old posed on the tube this morning. I just wondered if anyone knew the answer, because I really couldn’t think of one!

If more than one goose is ‘geese’, why isn’t more than one moose ‘meese’?

Top 5 Answers

A few days ago

ankita c

Favorite Answer

The plural of moose is actually “moose.” The word goose and the word moose originate from different languages, hence the difference in plurals.

A few days ago

Anonymous

I think it’s just one of the ‘peculiarities’ of English.

Goose has it’s origin in Old English. The plural form has come from there too.

[Origin: bef. 1000; ME gose, goos, OE gōs (pl. gés); c. G Gans, ON gās; cf. Skt haṅsa, Gk chn, L ānser]

Moose, on the other hand, has been adopted from a Native American Indian language (Alonquian) and was made to follow conventional English rules-add -s to make a plural.

[Origin: 1595–1605, Americanism; < Eastern Abenaki mos, reinforced by cognates in other Algonquian languages, all < Proto-Algonquian *mo˙swa].

A few days ago

MALIBU CANYON

Sharp five year old! In a few years, check back and make sure “there”, “they’re”, and “their” is all squared away. By the way, quite a few geese live the next block over from me. And ducks.

A few days ago

Bethany

Your five-year-old might like to add tooth and teeth to his/her list. For now, you can tell him/her that some words are just too lazy to change when they become plural, like deer, fish, sheep, and moose.

A few days ago

Michelle My Bell

Because the English language doesn’t make any sense sometimes.

which sentence is grammatically right? see the details.?

Unscramble these letters to finish this sentence!?

What does “dinkle”mean?

what is a guardianista?

i try to find the translation to Francais the term ‘overall acceptance’ in domain food scien. could u help me?

What does it means by saying this sentence?

What is lanugo?

Does this phrase sound weird?

Singular And plural…?

Singular And plural…?

Related Posts