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English declension
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Grammatical cases
List of grammatical cases
Abessive case
Ablative case
Absolutive case
Accusative case
Adessive case
Adverbial case
Allative case
Aversive case
Benefactive case
Caritive case
Causal case
Causal-final case
Comitative case
Dative case
Delative case
Direct case
Disjunctive case
Distributive case
Distributive-temporal case
Elative case
Essive case
Essive-formal case
Essive-modal case
Evitative case
Excessive case
Final case
Formal case
Genitive case
Illative case
Inessive case
Instructive case
Instrumental case
Lative case
Locative case
Modal case
Multiplicative case
Oblique case
Objective case
Partitive case
Perlative case
Possessive case
Postpositional case
Prepositional case
Privative case
Prolative case
Prosecutive case
Separative case
Sociative case
Subessive case
Sublative case
Superessive case
Superlative case
Temporal case
Terminative case
Translative case
Vialis case
Vocative case

Morphosyntactic alignment
Absolutive case
Accusative case
Ergative case
Instrumental case
Instrumental-comitative case
Intransitive case
Nominative case

Declension
English declension
German declension
Latin declension
Slovak declension
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The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to modern German or Icelandic. Old English distinguished between the nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, and instrumental cases. Declension fell into disuse during the Middle English period, when accusative and dative pronouns merged into a single objective pronoun. Modern English no longer uses declension, except for remnants of the former system in a few pronouns.

"Who" and "whom", "he" and "him", "she" and "her", etc. are remnants of both the old nominative vs. accusative and also of nominative vs. dative. In other words, "whom" serves as both the dative and accusative version of the nominative pronoun "who". In Old English (and in modern German, Icelandic, etc.), these cases had distinct pronouns.

This collapse of the separate case pronouns into the same word is one of the reasons grammarians consider the dative and accusative cases to be extinct in English — neither is an ideal term for the role played by "whom". Instead, the term objective is often used; that is, "whom" is a generic objective pronoun which can describe either a direct or an indirect object. The nominative case, "who", is called simply the subjective. The information formerly conveyed by having distinct case forms is now mostly provided by prepositions and word order.

Modern English morphologically distinguishes only one case, the possessive case — which some linguists argue is not a case at all, but a clitic (see the entry for genitive case for more information). With only a few pronominal exceptions, the objective and subjective always have the same form.

Evolution of English declension

Interrogative pronouns

Old masculine/feminine to the modern person
Case Old English Middle English Modern English
Nominative hwa who who
Accusative hwone / hwæne whom who / whom1
Dative hwam / hw?m
Instrumental hw? / hwon
Genitive hwæs whos whose

1 - Most generally speaking, in non-subject rules: "whom" is used in "formal" situations and in writing, while "who" is colloquial or "informal". A dialectal investigation should be taken into consideration, of course.

Old neuter to the modern thing
Case Old English Middle English Modern English
Nominative hwæt what what
Accusative hwæt what / whom
Dative hwam / hw?m
Instrumental hwi
Genitive hwæs whos whose1

First person personal pronouns

Singular
Case Old English Middle English Modern English
Nominative ic I / ich I
Accusative me / mec me me
Dative me
Genitive min min / mi my, mine

Plural
Case Old English Middle English Modern English
Nominative we we we
Accusative us / usic us us
Dative us
Genitive user / ure ure / our our, ours
[edit]
Second person personal pronouns
n.b. þ is a letter from Old English, roughly corresponding to th.

Old and Middle English singular to the Modern English archaic informal
Case Old English Middle English Modern English
Nominative þu þu / thou thou (you)
Accusative þe / þec þé / thee thee (you)
Dative þe
Genitive þin þi / þin / þine / thy /thin / thine thy, thine (your)
[edit]
Old and Middle English plural to the archaic formal to the modern general
Case Old English Middle English Modern English
Nominative ge ye / ?e / you you
Accusative eow / eowic you, ya
Dative eow
Genitive eower your your, yours

You in the nominative case was used in Middle English only as a formal but not as a plural pronoun. So there was a difference between You are (singular formal) and Ye are (plural informal).

Third person personal pronouns

Feminine singular
Case Old English Middle English Modern English
Nominative heo heo / sche / ho / he / ?ho she
Accusative hie hire / hure / her / heore her
Dative hire
Genitive hire hir / hire / heore / her / here her, hers

Masculine singular
Case Old English Middle English Modern English
Nominative he he he
Accusative hine him him
Dative him
Genitive his his his

Neuter singular
Case Old English Middle English Modern English
Nominative hit hit / it it
Accusative hit hit / it / him
Dative him
Genitive his his / its its

Plural
Case Old English Middle English Modern English
Nominative hie he / hi / ho / hie / þai / þei they
Accusative hie hem / ham / heom / þaim / þem / þam them, 'em
Dative him
Genitive hiro here / heore / hore / þair / þar their, theirs

In the English language, nouns are inflected for grammatical number — that is, singular or plural. This article discusses the variety of ways in which English plurals are formed.

Note that phonetic transcriptions provided in this article are for General American.

Regular plurals
The plural morpheme in English is suffixed to the end of most nouns. The plural form is usually represented orthographically by adding -s to the singular form (see exceptions below). The phonetic form of the plural morpheme is [z] by default. When the preceding sound is a voiceless consonant, it is pronounced [s]. Examples:

Where a noun ends in a sibilant sound — one of [s], [?], [?], [z], [?], and [?] — the plural is formed by adding [?z] (also pronounced [?z]), which is spelled -es if the word does not already end with -e:

glass glasses /'glæs?z/
dish dishes /'d???z/
witch witches /'w???z/
phase phases /'fe?z?z/
judge judges /'????z/

Morphophonetically, these rules are sufficient to describe most English plurals. However, there are several complications introduced in spelling.

The -oes rule: most nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant also form their plurals by adding -es (pronounced [z]):

The -ies rule: nouns ending in a y preceded by a consonant drop the y and add -ies (pronounced [iz]):

Note, however, that proper nouns (particularly those for people or places) ending in a y preceded by a consonant form their plurals regularly:

Harry Harrys (as in There are three Harrys in our office)
Germany Germanys (as in The two Germanys were unified in 1990)

A few common nouns ending in a y preceded by a consonant form their plurals regularly:

monkey monkeys
day days
[edit]
Almost-regular plurals
Many nouns of Italian or Spanish origin are exceptions to the -oes rule:

canto cantos
piano pianos
portico porticos
quarto (paper size) quartos
solo solos

Many nouns ending in a voiceless fricative mutate that sound to a voiced fricative before adding the plural ending. In the case of [f] changing to [v] the mutation is indicated in the orthography as well:

calf calves /kævz/
wolf wolves /w?lvz/
bath baths /bæðz/
mouth mouths /ma?ðz/
house houses /ha?z?z/

dwarf1 dwarfs/dwarves
hoof hoofs/hooves
staff2 staffs/staves
turf turfs/turves (latter rare)
roof roofs/rooves (latter archaic)

Note 1: Dwarf is an interesting case: the common form of the plural was dwarfs — as, for example, in Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — until J. R. R. Tolkien popularised dwarves; he intended the changed spelling to differentiate the "dwarf" race in his novels from the cuter and simpler beings common in fairy tales, but it has since spread. Multiple dwarf stars, or non-mythological short human beings, however, are dwarfs.

Note 2: For staff in the sense of "a body of employees", the plural is always staffs; otherwise both staffs and staves are acceptable, except in compounds; such as flagstaffs. The stave of a barrel or cask is a back-formation from staves, which is its plural. (See the Plural to singular by back-formation section below.)

Irregular plurals
There are many other less regular ways of forming plurals. While they may seem quirky, they usually stem from older forms of English or from foreign borrowings.

Irregular Germanic plurals
The plural of a few Germanic nouns can also be formed from the singular by adding n or en, stemming from the obsolete weak declension:

ox oxen (also oxes in metaphorical sense)
cow kine (archaic/regional)
eye eyen (rare, found in some regional dialects)
shoe shoon (also rare/obsolete)
child children (with the original stem extension -r-)

The word box, referring to a computer, is semi-humorously pluralized boxen in the Leet dialect. Multiple Vax computers, likewise, are sometimes called Vaxen, but multiple Unix systems are usually Unices (see Irregular plurals of foreign origin below).

The plural is sometimes formed by simply changing the vowel sound of the singular, in a process called umlaut (these are sometimes called mutated plurals):

Some nouns have singular and plural alike, although they are sometimes seen as regular plurals.

aircraft
sheep
moose
deer
fish, cod, trout, etc.
head, when used to mean "animals in a herd"; fifty head of cattle.
cannon
Some, especially the names of animals, have regular plurals, but these contrast in meaning with the unmarked plurals. Generally, plurals refer to several species or kinds of animal, while the unmarked plural is used to describe multiple individual animals; one would say the order [classification] of fishes, but five fish in an aquarium.

Irregular plurals from Latin and Greek
Because English includes words from so many ancestral languages, as well as many loanwords from Latin, Classical Greek and modern languages, there are many other forms of plurals. Such nouns (particularly ones from Latin) often retain their original plurals, at least for some time after they are introduced. In some cases both forms are still vying for attention: for example, for a librarian, the plural of appendix is appendices (following the original language); for physicians, however, the plural of appendix is appendixes. Likewise, a radio engineer works with antennas and an entomologist deals with antennae. The "correct" form is the one that sounds better in context, or that people in the field use.

Correctly formed Latin plurals are the most acceptable, and indeed are often required, in academic and scientific contexts. In common usage, plurals with -s are sometimes preferred.

Final a becomes ae (also æ) — or just adds s:
formula formulae/formulas
alumna alumnae

Final ex or ix becomes ices (pronounced [??si?z] or [??siz]) — or just adds es:
vertex vertices /'v?t??si?z/
matrix matrices /'me?t???si?z/
index indices /'?nd??si?z/ -or- indexes

Some people treat process as if it belonged to this class, pronouncing processes /'p??s??si?z/ instead of standard /'p??s?s?z/

Final is becomes es (pronounced [?i?z]:
axis axes /'æk?si?z/
testis testes /'t?s?ti?z/
crisis crises /'k?a??si?z/

Note that axes the plural of axis is pronounced differently from axes (/'æks?z/) the plural of axe.

Final on becomes a:
phenomenon phenomena (more below)
criterion criteria
automaton automata
polyhedron polyhedra

Final um becomes a – or just adds s
addendum addenda
datum data (now often treated as a singular mass noun in informal usage, but in publishing usually still plural)
memorandum memoranda/memorandums
forum fora/forums
medium media (in communications and computers; now often treated as a singular mass noun)/
mediums (spiritualists)

Final us becomes i (second declension) or era or ora (third declension) — or just adds es (especially in fourth declension, where it would otherwise be the same as the singular):
radius radii
alumnus alumni
viscus viscera
corpus corpora
prospectus prospectuses

Related is the use amongst Petrolheads of the term "Loti" to refer to examples of Lotus Cars in the plural.

Final as in one case of a noun of Greek origin changes to antes:
Atlas Atlantes (statues of the hero); but
atlas atlases (map collections)

Final ma in nouns of Greek origin add ta:
stigma stigmata
stoma stomata
zeugma zeugmata

Final us in nouns of Greek origin "properly" add es. These words are also heard with the Latin -i instead, which is sometimes considered "over-correct", but this is so common as to be acceptable in most circumstances, even technical ones.
cactus cactuses/cacti
hippopotamus hippopotamuses/hippopotami
octopus octopuses/octopi/octopodes
platypus platypuses
rhinoceros rhinoceroses/rhinoceri
uterus uteruses/uteri

The Greek plural for words ending in -pus (gr. poûs) meaning "foot", such as octopus and platypus, is -podes, but this plural is rare for octopus and has never been accepted for platypus.

Irregular plurals from other languages
Some nouns of French origin add x
beau beaux
chateau chateaux
bureau bureaus/bureaux (Commonwealth English)

Foreign terms may use native plural forms, especially when the words are unfamiliar to an anglophone audience, or when writing for an audience familiar with the language. In either case, the unfamiliar conventionally-formed English plural may sound awkward, or be confusing.

Examples of nouns from Slavic languages.
kniazhestvo kniazhestvos/kniazhestva ("domain of a kniaz")
kobzar kobzars/kobzari
oblast oblasts/oblasti

Nouns of Hebrew language origin add im or ot (generally m/f) — or just s
Note that ot is pronounced os in the Ashkenazi dialect.
cherub cherubim/cherubs
seraph seraphim/seraphs
matzoh matzot/matzos

Some nouns of Japanese origin have no plural and do not change:
samurai samurai
otaku otaku

However, other nouns such as kimonos, futons and tsunamis are more often seen with a regular English plural.

In New Zealand English, nouns of Maori origin can either take an s or have no separate plural form. Words more connected to Maori culture and used in that context tend to retain the same form, while names of flora and fauna may or may not take an s, depending on context. Omission is regarded by many as more correct.
Maori Maori/(occasionally Maoris)
kiwi kiwi/kiwis
waka waka
marae marae
kowhai kowhai/kowhais
tui tuis/tui

Note: kiwi, when referring to the bird, may or may not take an s, but when used as an informal term for a New Zealander, always takes an s. Maori, when referring to a person of that ethnicity, does not usually take an s. Many speakers avoid the use of Maori as a noun, and instead use it only as an adjective.

In Canada and Alaska, some words borrowed from Inuktitut retain traditional plurals (see also #Plurals of names of peoples, below):
Inuk Inuit
inukshuk inukshuit

Nouns from languages that have donated few words to English, and that are spoken by relatively few English-speakers, generally form plurals as if they were native English words:
canoe canoes
kayak kayaks
igloo igloos
kangaroo kangaroos
sauna saunas
cwm cwms (Welsh valley)
pizza pizzas
kindergarten kindergartens

Words better known in the plural
Some words of foreign origin are much better known in the plural; usage of the proper singular may be considered pedantic or actually incorrect by some speakers. In common usage, the proper plural is considered the singular form. Back-formation has usually resulted in a regularized plural.

Proper singular Proper plural/
common singular Common plural
candelabrum candelabra candelabras
datum data data (mass noun)
agendum agenda agendas/agendae (less common)
graffito graffiti graffiti (mass noun)
insigne insignia insignias
alga algae algae/algaes
opus opera operas
viscus viscera (singular not in common usage)
panino panini paninis (currently gaining use)
phalanx phalanges

Note: A single piece of data is often referred to as a data point. A military phalanx is pluralized phalanxes. The phalanges as body parts (fingers and toes) are rarely referred to in the singular.

A related phenomenon is the confusion of a foreign plural for its singular form:

Magazine is a plural noun, from Arabic via French, but is always regarded as singular in English; the plural is magazines.

Plurals of numbers
English, like some other languages, treats large numerals like nouns, such as in "ten soldiers" and "a hundred soldiers." This is why dozens is preferred to tens while hundreds and thousands are all right.

Plurals of numerals differ according to how they are used. Such words include dozen, score, hundred, thousand, million, and so forth. The following examples apply to all of these.

When modified by a number, the plural is not inflected, that is, has no s added. Hence one hundred, two hundred, etc. For vaguer large numbers, one could say several hundred, but many hundreds.
When used alone, or followed by a prepositional phrase, the plural is inflected: dozens of complaints, scores of people. However, either complaints by the dozen or complaints by the dozens is acceptable (although differing in meaning).
The preposition of is used when speaking of non-specific items identified by pronouns: two hundred of these, three dozen of those. The of is not used for a number of specific items: three hundred oriental rugs. However, if the pronoun is included with the specific item, the of is used: five million of those dollar bills.

Plurals and units of measure
Words that are being used as a unit of measure are kept in the singular when the measure it is a part of is used as an adjective. Thus for example a "twenty-dollar bill" is a bill worth "twenty dollars", a "fifteen-car wreck" is a wreck involving "fifteen cars", and a "ten-foot pole" is a pole that is "ten feet" in length except when used idiomatically.

Defective nouns
Some nouns have no singular form. Such a noun is called a plurale tantum:

annals, billiards*, measles, nuptials, thanks, tidings, victuals, vittles, credentials
* This refers to the table game, not the number 1015 in the long scale system of numeric names, which can be singular billiard.
However, some of them do have singular adjective forms, such as in billiard ball. In addition, some of them are treated as singular in construction, such as in "billiards is a game played on a table with multiple balls and a cue stick."

pants, scissors, trousers, tweezers
Note, however, that these words are interchangeable with a pair of scissors, a pair of trousers, and so forth. Nor are scissor, trouser, tweezer, or pant the names of the individual parts. However, the fashion industry frequently calls a single pair of pants a pant; this is a back-formation. (See the Plural to singular by back-formation section below.) In addition, one half of a pair of scissors separated from the other half is, perhaps illogically, referred to as a half-scissor.

A compound that has a head at the beginning, particularly a legal term from French, commonly pluralizes its head:

attorney general attorneys general
son-in-law sons-in-law
court martial courts martial
armful armsful/armfuls (the latter is preferred today)
governor-general (in Canada) governors-general
procurator-fiscal (in Scotland) procurators fiscal

They don't have to be considered irregular, because an attorney general is a kind of attorney, not general, and a court martial is a kind of court, not martial. It is common in informal speech to pluralize the last word in the usual way, but in edited prose, the forms given are preferred.

On the other hand, if a compound can be thought to have two heads, both of them are sometimes pluralized, especially when the first head has an irregular plural form:

man-child men-children
manservant menservants
Knight Hospitaller Knights Hospitallers
agent provocateur agents provocateurs
woman doctor women doctors

Comment: agent provocateur is a French term: agent is a noun and provocateur is an adjective. In French, the adjective must agree with the noun, so when the noun becomes plural, so does the adjective. This is not an exception. It is just following the rules of the originating language.

Mass nouns (or uncountable nouns) do not represent distinct objects, so the singular and plural semantics do not apply in the same way. Some examples:

Abstract nouns
goodness, idleness, wisdom, deceit, honesty, freshness
Arts and sciences (even those ending in ics are treated as singular)
chemistry, geometry, surgery, biometrics, mechanics, optics, blues (in music)
Other mass nouns, such as chemical elements and substances:
antimony, gold, oxygen, equipment, furniture, species, distress, sand, water, air, information
Some mass nouns can be pluralized, but the meaning thereof may change slightly. For example, when I have two pieces of sand, I do not have two sands; I have sand. There is more sand in your pile, not more sands. But there could be many "sands of Africa" - either many distinct stretches of sand, or distinct types of sand of interest to geologists or builders, or simply the allusive sands of Africa.

It is rare to pluralize furniture in this way. Nor would information be so treated, except in the case of criminal informations, which are prosecutor's briefs similar to indictments.

There is only one class of atoms called oxygen, but there are several isotopes of oxygen, which might be referred to as different oxygens. In casual speech, oxygen might be used as shorthand for "oxygen atoms", but in this case it is not a mass noun, so it is entirely sensible to refer to multiple oxygens in the same molecule.

One would interpret "Bob's wisdoms" as various pieces of Bob's wisdom (that is, pieces of advice), deceits as a series of instances of deceitful behavior, and the different idlenesses of the worker as plural distinct manifestations of the mass concept of idleness (or as different types of idleness, "bone lazy" versus "no work to do").

Specie and species make a fascinating case. Both words come from a Latin word meaning "kind", but they do not form a singular-plural pair; they are separate nouns. Coins, such as nickels, euro/euros (see Linguistic issues concerning the euro), and cents are specie, but there is no plural. The idea is "payment in kind". And species, the "kinds of living things", is the same in singular and plural.
Some names of elements, such as nickel, have plurals in non-chemical uses, as "five nickels to the quarter".

Nouns with multiple plurals
Some nouns have two plurals, one used to refer to a number of things considered individually, the other to refer to a number of things collectively. In some cases, one of the two is nowadays archaic or dialectal.

brother brothers brethren
cannon cannons cannon
child children childera
cow cows kineb
die dice diesc
fish fish fishesd
penny pennies pencee
sow sows swine
pig pigs swine
iris (plant) iris irisesf
cloth cloths clothesg

Note a: Childer has all but disappeared, but can still be seen in Childermas (Innocents' Day). Note b: Kine is still used in rural English dialects. Note c: Dies is used as the plural for die in the sense of a mould; dice as the plural (and increasingly as the singular) in the sense of a small random number generator. Note d: Fish: the plural for one species of fish, or caught fish, is fish, but for live fish of many species, or in poetic usage, fishes is used. Note e: If you have several (British) one-penny pieces you have several pennies. Pence is used for an amount of money, which can be made up of a number of coins of different denominations: one penny and one five-penny piece are together worth six pence. Penny and pennies also refer to one or more U.S. one-cent pieces. But in American usage, a nickel is worth five cents, not five pence, though a penny is worth one cent (not plural). Note f: For multiple plants, iris is used, but irises is used for multiple blossoms. Note g: Clothes refers collectively to all of the cloth covering a person's body.

A final odd case is person. The word people is usually treated as the suppletive plural of person (one person, many people). However, in legal and other formal contexts, the plural of person is persons; furthermore, people can also be a singular noun with its own plural (for example, "We are many persons, from many peoples").

Plurals of symbols and abbreviations
Symbols and abbreviations whose plural would be ambiguous if only an s were added are pluralized by adding 's.

"mind your p's and q's"
Usage is divided on whether to extend this use of the apostrophe to non-ambiguous cases, such as the plurals of numbers (1990's) and words used as terms (his writing contains a lot of but's). Some writers use this form in a desire for consistency, whereas others say it confuses the plural with the possessive -'s.

Plurals of acronyms and initialisms
Acronyms and initialisms are generally used as if they are words. Clearly, one would tend not to pluralize the laser initialism as laser's. Thus the most consistent approach for pluralizing acronyms is likely to simply add a lowercase s as a suffix. This works well even for acronyms ending with an S, as in CASs (pronounced 'kazzes'), while still making it possible to use the possessive form ('s) for acronyms without confusion.

The traditional style of pluralizing single letters with 's (as explained above for symbols and abbreviations) was naturally extended to acronyms when they were commonly written with periods. This form is still preferred by some people for initialisms and thus the form using 's as a suffix is often seen in general usage.

Plurals of headless nouns
Linguist Steven Pinker, in his book, The Language Instinct discusses what he calls "headless words", typically bahuvrihis, like lowlife and Red Sox, where the life and sox are not heads semantically; that is, a lowlife is not a type of life, nor are Red Sox a kind of sock. Thus, more than one lowlife is lowlifes and a single member of the Boston baseball team is a Red Sox. Other examples include the Toronto ice-hockey team Maple Leafs, not Maple Leaves, sabertooth and sabertooths, flatfoot and flatfoots, tenderfoot and tenderfoots, still life and still lifes. An exception is Blackfoot, of which the plural can be Blackfeet.

Mouse is sometimes pluralized mouses when it refers to a computer mouse, although, in this case, mice is just as common because of the physical similarity between the input device and the rodent, which is the origin of the term.

Plural to singular by back-formation
Some words have started out with unusually formed singulars and plurals, but more "normal" singular-plural pairs have resulted by back-formation. For an example from the vegetable world, pease was the singular and peasen the plural, but over the centuries, first pease became the plural and pea the singular, and finally the plural was altered to peas. Similarly, termites and primates were the three-syllable plurals of termes and primas, respectively, but these singulars were lost, the plurals given two syllables, and now we have termite and termites and primate and primates. Syringe is a back-formation from syringes, itself the plural of syrinx, a musical instrument. Cherry is from Norman French cherise. Finally, phases was once the plural of phasis, but the singular is now phase.

Kudos is a singular Greek word meaning praise, but the same process may be happening to it. At present, kudo is an error, however. The name of the Greek sandwich style gyros is, increasingly, undergoing the same transformation. Gyros is from the Greek for "turning," but it looks like an English plural, and it is not uncommon to hear or see a reference to "a gyro".

The singular form of Spanish tamales (IPA: [ta 'mal es]) is tamal ([ta 'mal]). The anglicized version of tamales is pronounced [t? 'm?l iz] and the back-formed singular is tamale [(t? 'm?l i)].

In discussing peoples whose demonym takes -man or -woman, there are three options: pluralize to -men or -women if referring to individuals, and use the root alone if referring to the whole nation, or add people.

Dutchman
Dutchwoman Dutchmen
Dutchwomen the Dutch
Englishman
Englishwoman Englishmen
Englishwomen the English
Frenchman
Frenchwoman Frenchmen
Frenchwomen the French
Irishman
Irishwoman Irishmen
Irishwomen the Irish
Scotsman
Scotswoman Scotsmen
Scotswomen the Scots
Welshman
Welshwoman Welshmen
Welshwomen the Welsh

One can say "a Scots(wo)man" or "a Scot", "Scots(wo)men", "Scottish people", or "Scots," and "the Scottish" or "the Scots". (Scotch is considered old fashioned.)

Dane Danes the Danes
the Danish
Finn Finns the Finns
the Finnish
Swede Swedes the Swedes
the Swedish
Spaniard Spaniards the Spaniards
the Spanish (much more common)

Ojibwa
Iroquois
Blood
Mi'kmaq
Some exceptions include Crees, Mohawks, Hurons, Algonquins, Chippewas, Oneidas, Aztecs. Note also the following words borrowed from Inuktitut:

Inuk Inuit
Nunavummiuq Nunavummiut ("inhabitant of Nunavut")
Iqalummiuq Iqalummiut ("inhabitant of Iqaluit")
Nunavimmiuq Nunavimmiut ("inhabitant of Nunavik")

Names of most other peoples of the world are pluralized using the normal English rules.

Discretionary plurals
A number of words like army, fleet, Government, company, party, pack, crowd, mess, number, and majority, may refer either to a single entity or the members of the set that compose it. Thus, in British English they are "treated as singular or plural at discretion," as H.W. Fowler put it, who noted that occasionally a "delicate distinction" is made possible by discretionary plurals: "The Cabinet is divided is better, because in the order of thought a whole must precede division; and The Cabinet are agreed is better, because it takes two or more to agree" (A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2nd ed., revised by Sir Ernest Gowers [New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965], p. 403). Also in British English, names of towns and countries take plural verbs when they refer to sports teams but singular verbs when they refer to the actual place: England are playing Germany tonight refers to a football game, but England is the most populous country of the United Kingdom refers to the country. In North American English, such words are invariably treated as singular.

Snob plurals
Another type of irregular plural occurs in the register of the English upper classes in the context of field sports, where the singular form is used in place of the plural, as in "a herd of antelope", "two lion" or "five pheasant". Eric Partridge in Usage & Abusage refers to these as "Snob Plurals" and conjectures that they may have developed by analogy with the common English irregular plural animal words "deer", "sheep" and "trout".

Verbs in the English language are a lexically and morphologically distinct part of speech which describes an action, an event, or a state.

While English has many irregular verbs (see a list), for the regular ones the conjugation rules are quite straightforward. Being part of an analytic language, English regular verbs are not very much inflected; all tenses, aspects and moods except the simple present and the simple past are periphrastic, formed with auxiliary verbs and modals.

Principal parts
A regular English verb has only one principal part, the infinitive or dictionary form (which is identical to the simple present tense for all persons and numbers except the third person singular). All other forms of a regular verb can be derived straightforwardly from the infinitive, for a total of four forms (e.g. exist, exists, existed, existing)

Strong verbs like write have all three distinct parts, for a total of five forms (e. g. write, writes, wrote, written, writing). The more irregular weak verbs also require up to three forms to be learned.

The highly irregular copular verb to be has eight forms: be, am, is, are, being, was, were, been, of which only one is derivable from a principal part (being is derived from be). On the history of this verb, see Indo-European copula.

Verbs had more forms when the pronoun thou was still in regular use and there was a number distinction in the second person. To be, for instance, had art, wast and wert.

Most of the strong verbs that survive in modern English are considered irregular. Irregular verbs in English come from several historical sources; some are technically strong verbs (i. e. their forms display specific vowel changes of the type known as ablaut in linguistics); others have had various phonetic changes or contractions added to them over the history of English.

Infinitive and basic form

Formation
The infinitive in English is the naked root form of the word. When it is being used as a verbal noun, the particle to is usually prefixed to it. When the infinitive stands as the predicate of an auxiliary verb, to may be omitted, depending on the requirements of the idiom.

Uses
The infinitive, in English, is one of two verbal nouns: To write is to learn.
The infinitive, either marked with to or unmarked, is used as the complement of many auxiliary verbs: I will write a novel about talking beavers; I am really going to write it.
The basic form also forms the English imperative mood: Write these words!
The basic form makes the English subjunctive mood: If you write it, they will read.

Third person singular

Formation
The third person singular in regular verbs in English is distinguished by the suffix -s. In English spelling, this -s is added to the stem of the infinitive form: run ? runs.

If the base ends in a sibilant sound like /s/, /z/, /?/, /t?/ (see IPA) that is not followed by a silent E, the suffix is written -es: buzz ? buzzes; catch ? catches.

If the base ends in a consonant plus y, the y changes to an i and -es is affixed to the end: cry ? cries.

In Early Modern English, some dialects distinguished the third person singular with the suffix -th; after consonants this was written -eth, and some consonants were doubled when this was added: run ? runneth.

Use
The third person singular is used exclusively in the third person form of the English simple "present tense", which often has other uses besides the simple present: He writes airport novels about anthropomorphic rodents.

Exception
English preserves a number of preterite-present verbs, such as can and may. These verbs lack a separate form for the third person singular: she can, she may. All surviving preterite-present verbs in modern English are auxiliary verbs. The verb will, although historically not a preterite-present verb, has come to be inflected like one when used as an auxiliary; it adds -s in the third person singular only when it is a full verb: Whatever she wills to happen will make life annoying for everyone else.

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Present participle

Formation
The present participle is typically made by the suffix -ing: go ? going.

If the base ends in silent e, it is dropped before adding the suffix: believe ? believing.

the base form ends in a single consonant; and
a single vowel precedes that consonant; and
the last syllable of the base form is stressed
then the final consonant is doubled before adding the suffix: set ? setting; occur ? occurring.

In British English, as an exception, the final <l> is subject to doubling even when the last syllable is not stressed: yodel ? yodelling, travel ? travelling; in American English, these follow the rule: yodeling, traveling.

If the final consonant of a word subject to the doubling rule is -c, that consonant is doubled as -ck: panic ? panicking.

singeing, where the e is (sometimes) not dropped to avoid confusion with singing;
ageing, in British English, where the expected form aging is ambiguous as to whether it has a hard or soft g;
a number of words that are subject to the doubling rule even though they do not fall squarely within its terms, such as diagramming, kidnapping, programming, and worshipping.

Uses
The present participle is another English verbal noun: Writing is learning (see gerund for this sense).
It is used as an adjective: a writing desk; building beavers.
It is used to form a present tense with progressive or imperfective force: He is writing another long book about beavers.
It is used with quasi-auxiliaries to form verb phrases: He tried writing about opossums instead, but his muse deserted him.

Preterite

Formation
In weak verbs, the preterite is formed with the suffix -ed: work ? worked.

Where the base ends in a consonant plus y, the y changes to i before the -ed is added; deny ? denied.

The rule for doubling the final consonant in regular weak verbs for the preterite is the same as the rule for doubling in the present participle; see above.

Many strong verbs and other irregular verbs form the preterite differently, for which see that article.

Use
The preterite is used for the English simple (non-iterative or progressive) past tense. He wrote two more chapters about the dam at Kashawigamog Lake.
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Past participle

Formation
In regular weak verbs, the past participle is always the same as the preterite.

Irregular verbs may have separate preterites and past participles; see List of English irregular verbs.

Uses
The past participle is used for the English past perfect tense, usually with the auxiliary have: They have written about the slap of tails on water, about the scent of the lodge...
With be, it forms the passive voice: It is written so well, you can feel what it's like to gnaw down trees!
It is used as an adjective: the written word; a broken dam.
It is used with quasi-auxiliaries to form verb phrases: 500,000 words got written in record time.

Tenses of the English verb
English verbs, like those in many other western European languages, have more tenses than forms; tenses beyond the ones possible with the five forms listed above are formed with auxiliary verbs, as are the passive voice forms of these verbs. Important auxiliary verbs in English include will, used to form the future tense; shall, formerly used mainly for the future tense, but now used mainly for commands and directives; be, have, and do, which are used to form the supplementary tenses of the English verb, to add aspect to the actions they describe, or for negation.

English verbs display complex forms of negation. While simple negation was used well into the period of early Modern English (Touch not the royal person!) in contemporary English negation almost always requires that the negative particle be attached to an auxiliary verb such as do or be. I go not is archaic; I don't go or I am not going are what the contemporary idiom requires.

English exhibits similar idiomatic complexity with the interrogative mood, which in Indo-European languages is not, strictly speaking, a mood. Like many other Western European languages, English historically allowed questions to be asked by inverting the position of verb and subject: Whither goest thou? Now, in English, questions are trickily idiomatic, and require the use of auxiliary verbs.

Overview of tenses
In English grammar, tense refers to any conjugated form expressing time, aspect or mood. The large number of different composite verb forms means that English has the richest and subtlest system of tense and aspect of any Germanic language. It is however extremely confusing for foreign learners. In fact, though, the English verb is very systematic once one understands that in each of the three time spheres past, present and future, English has a basic tense which can then be made either perfect or progressive (continuous) or both.

Simple Progressive Perfect Perfect progressive
Future I will write I will be writing I will have written I will have been writing
Present I write I am writing I have written I have been writing
Past I wrote I was writing I had written I had been writing

Because of the neatness of this system, modern textbooks on English generally use the terminology in this table. What was traditionally called the "perfect" is here called "present perfect" and the "pluperfect" becomes "past perfect", in order to show the relationships of the perfect forms to their respective simple forms. Whereas in other Germanic languages, or in Old English, the "perfect" is just a past tense, the English "present perfect" has a present reference; it is both a past tense and a present tense, describing the connection between a past event and a present state.

However, historical linguists sometimes prefer terminology which applies to all Germanic languages and is more helpful for comparative purposes; when describing wrote as a historical form, for example, we would say "preterite" rather than "past simple".

This table, of course, omits a number of forms which can be regarded as additional to the basic system:

the intensive present I do write
the intensive past I did write
the habitual past I used to write
the "shall future" I shall write
the "going-to future" I am going to write
the "future in the past" I was going to write
the conditional I would write
the perfect conditional I would have written
the (increasingly seldomly used) subjunctives, if I be, if I were.
A full inventory of verb forms follows.

Affirmative: I write; He writes
Negative: He does not (doesn't) write
Interrogative: Does he write?
Negative interrogative: Does he not write? (Doesn't he write?)
Note that the "simple present" in idiomatic English is often identifies habitual or customary action:

He writes about beavers (understanding that he does so all the time.)
It is used with stative verbs:

She thinks beavers are remarkable
It can also have a future meaning (though much less commonly than in many other languages):

She goes to Milwaukee on Tuesday.
Put Tuesday in the plural, and She goes to Milwaukee on Tuesdays means that she goes to Milwaukee every Tuesday.

The present simple has an intensive or emphatic form with "do": He does write. In the negative and interrogative forms, of course, this is identical to the non-emphatic forms. It is typically used as a response to the question Does he write, whether that question is expressed or implied, and says that indeed, he does write.

The idiomatic use of the negative particles not and -n't in the interrogative form is also worth noting. In formal literary English of the sort in which contractions are avoided, not attaches itself to the main verb: Does he not write? When the colloquial contraction -n't is used, this attaches itself to the auxiliary do: Doesn't he write? An expansion of the colloquial form — *Does not he write? — offends against idiom, and is seldom encountered except occasionally in poetry.

Affirmative: He is writing
Negative: He is not writing
Interrogative: Is he writing?
Negative interrogative: Is he not writing? / Isn't he writing?
This form describes the simple engagement in a present activity, with the focus on action in progress "at this very moment". It too can indicate a future, particularly when discussing plans already in place: I am flying to Paris tomorrow. Used with "always" it suggests irritation; compare He always does that (neutral) with He's always doing that (and it annoys me). Word order differs here in the negative interrogative between the hyperformal is he not writing and the usual isn't he writing?

Affirmative: He has written
Negative: He has not written
Interrogative: Has he written?
Negative interrogative: Has he not written? (Hasn't he written?)
This indicates that a past event has one of a range of possible relationships to the present. This may be a focus on present result: He has written a very fine book (and look, here it is, we have it now). Or it may indicate a time-frame which includes the present. I have lived here since my youth (and I still do). Compare: Have you written a letter this morning? (it is still morning) with Did you write a letter this morning? (it is now afternoon). The perfect tenses are frequently used with the adverbs already or recently or with since clauses. Although the label “perfect tense” implies a completed action, the present perfect can identify habitual (I have written letters since I was ten years old.) or continuous (I have lived here for fifteen years.) action:

In addition to these normal uses where the time frame either is the present or includes the present, the “have done” construct is used in temporal clauses to define a future time: When you have written it, show it to me. It also forms a past infinitive, used when infinitive constructions require a past perspective: Mozart is said to have written his first symphony at the age of eight. (Notice that if not for the need of an infinitive, the simple past would have been used here: He wrote it at age eight.) The past infinitive is also used in the conditional perfect.

Affirmative: He has been writing
Negative: He has not been writing
Interrogative: Has he been writing?
Negative interrogative: Has he not been writing? (Hasn't he been writing?)
Used for unbroken action in the past which continues right up to the present. I have been writing this paper all morning (and still am).

Past simple
Or preterite. In older text books this was sometimes called the "imperfect" by analogy with French and to contrast it with the perfect, but that is misleading, as it is used precisely for completed actions.

Affirmative: He wrote
Negative: He did not write
Interrogative: Did he write?
Negative interrogative: Did he not write? (Didn't he write?)
The same change of word order in the negative interrogative that distinguishes the formal and informal register also applies to the preterite. Note also that the preterite form is also used only in the affirmative. When the sentence is recast as a negative or interrogative, he wrote not and wrote he? are archaic and not used in modern English. They must instead be supplied by periphrastic forms.

This tense is used for a single event in the past, sometimes for past habitual action, and in chronological narration. Like the present simple, it has emphatic forms with "do": he did write.

Although it is sometimes taught that the difference between the present perfect and the simple past is that the perfect denotes a completed action whereas the past denotes an incomplete action, this theory is clearly false. Both forms are normally used for completed actions. (Indeed the English preterite comes from the Proto-Indo-European perfect.) And either can be used for incomplete actions. The real distinction is that the present perfect is used when the time frame either is the present or includes the present, whereas the simple past is used when the time frame is in the absolute past.

The "used to" past tense for habitual actions is probably best included under the bracket of the past simple. Compare:

When I was young I played football every Saturday.
When I was young I used to play football every Saturday.
The difference is slight, but "used to" stresses the regularity, and the fact that the action has been discontinued.

Affirmative: He was writing
Negative: He was not writing
Interrogative: Was he writing?
Negative interrogative: Was he not writing? (Wasn't he writing?)
This is typically used for two events in parallel:

While I was washing the dishes my wife was walking the dog.
Or for an interrupted action (the past simple being used for the interruption):

While I was washing the dishes I heard a loud noise.
Or when we are focussing on a point in the middle of a longer action:

This time yesterday I was working in the garden. (Contrast: I worked in the garden all day yesterday.)

Past perfect
Or the "pluperfect"

Affirmative: He had written
Negative: He had not / hadn't written
Interrogative: Had he written?
Negative interrogative: Had he not written? (Hadn't he written?)

Past perfect progressive
Or "pluperfect progressive" or "continuous"

Affirmative: He had been writing
Negative: He had not been / hadn't been writing
Interrogative: Had he been writing?
Negative interrogative: Had he not been writing? (Hadn't he been writing?)
Relates to the past perfect much as the present perfect progressive relates to the present perfect, but tends to be used with less precision.

Future simple
Affirmative: He will write
Negative: He will not / won't write
Interrogative: Will he write?
Negative interrogative: Will he not write? (Won't he write?)
See the article Shall and Will for a discussion of the two auxiliary verbs used to form the simple future in English. There is also a future with "go" which is used especially for intended actions, and for the weather, and generally is more common in colloquial speech:

I'm going to write a book some day.
I think it's going to rain.
But the will future is preferred for spontaneous decisions:

Jack: "I think we should have a barbeque!"
Jill: "Good idea! I'll go get the coal."

Future progressive
Affirmative: He will be writing
Negative: He will not / won't be writing
Interrogative: Will he be writing?
Negative interrogative: Will he not be writing? (Won't he be writing?)
Used especially to indicate that an event will be in progress at a particular point in the future: This time tomorrow I will be taking my driving test.

Future perfect
Affirmative: He will have written
Negative: He will not / won't have written
Interrogative: Will he have written?
Negative interrogative: Will he not have written? (Won't he have written?)
Used for something which will be completed by a certain time (perfect in the literal sense) or which leads up to a point in the future which is being focused on.

I will have finished my essay by Thursday.
By then she will have been there for three weeks.

Future perfect progressive
Or future perfect continuous.

Affirmative: He will have been writing
Negative: He will not / won't have been writing
Interrogative: Will he have been writing?
Negative interrogative: Will he not have been writing? (Won't he have been writing?)

Conditional
Affirmative: He would write
Negative: He would not / wouldn't write
Interrogative: Would he write?
Negative interrogative: Would he not write?
Used principally in a main clause attached to an "if-clause":

I would do it if she asked me to.
(A very common error by foreign learners is to put the would into the if-clause itself. A humorous formulation of the rule for the EFL classroom runs: "If and would you never should, if and will makes teacher ill!" But of course, both will and would CAN occur in an if-clause when expressing volition. A student of English may rarely encounter the incorrect construction as it can occur as an archaic form.)

Conditional perfect
Affirmative: He would have written
Negative: He would not / wouldn't have written
Interrogative: Would he have written?
Negative interrogative: Would he not have written?
Used as the past tense of the conditional form.

Present subjunctive
The form is always identical to the infinitive. This means that, apart from the verb "to be", it is only distinct in the third person singular.

Indicative: I write, he writes, I am
Subjunctive: I write, he write, I be
Used increasingly seldom, but regarded as high style in sentences like:

I insist that he come at once.
(The modern, common style would be to say something like I insist that he must come at once.)

Imperfect subjunctive
The use of the old term "imperfect" shows that this form is so rare that it has not been integrated into the modern system of English tense classification. The imperfect subjunctive is identical to the past simple in every verb except the verb "to be". With this verb, there is an option, but no longer a necessity, of using were throughout ALL forms (i.e., I wish I were an Oscar Meyer weiner, vs. I wish I was a girl).

Indicative: I was
Subjunctive: traditionally I were but now more commonly I was.
If I were rich, I would retire to the South of France.

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