Let's say you're making a list of items from your home to take to a local charity. Are you donating two chairs or two chaires? three clocks or three clockes? five knives or five knifes? a picture of six deers or a picture of six deer? You get the picture; plurals in English are formed in any number of ways.

• To form the plural of most English words that don't end in -s, -z, -x, -sh, -ch, or -ss, add -s at the end:

  desk = desks, book = books, cup= cups

• To form the plural of most English words that end in -s, -z, -x, -sh, -ch, and -ss, add -esat the end:

  bus = buses, buzz = buzzes, box = boxes, dish = dishes, church = churches, kiss = kisses

  Exceptions to this rule include quizzes, frizzes, and whizzes. (Note the doubled -z.)

• To form the plural of some English words that end in -o, add -es at the end:

  potato = potatoes, echo = echoes, hero = heroes

  To make things interesting, other words that end in -o add only -s at the end:

  auto = autos, alto = altos, two = twos, zoo = zoos

  And — just to keep you on your toes — some words ending in -o can form the plural in multiple ways:

  buffalo = buffalo/buffaloes/buffalos, cargo = cargoes/cargos, ghetto = ghettos/ghettoes

  When in doubt about which form to use, consult your dictionary (check to see if your instructor or company prefers a particular dictionary) and use the plural form listed first.

• To form the plural of most English words that end in a consonant plus -y, change the y to i and add -es:

  lady = ladies, candy = candies, penny = pennies

• To form the plural of most English words that end in a vowel plus -y, add -s:

  joy = joys, day = days, key = keys

• To form the plural of most English words that end in -f or -fe, change the f to v and add -es:

  knife = knives, leaf = leaves, wife = wives

  Some exceptions to this rule (didn't you know there would be exceptions?) include chef, cliff, belief, tariff, bailiff, roof, and chief. All simply add -s to form their plural.

• Some words form their plurals in ways that defy categories:

  child = children, mouse = mice, foot = feet, person = people, tooth = teeth, ox = oxen

• And — to confuse matters further — some words are the same in both singular and plural:

  deer, offspring, crossroads

At the end of this chapter, you'll find spelling rules about prefixes and suffixes.

Many words that have come into English from other languages retain their original method of constructing plurals. Here are some of them: