Teacher Discussion Forums

adam6 · Joined: 24 May 2005 Posts: 3

Why is the plurl for radio and piano Radios and pianos but the plurl for tomato is tomatoes with es and not just s. also why do we say your finished and not you finished and is it passive or acyive voice

any help

fluffyhamster · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 10:53 am Post subject:

Not sure about the pianos vs tomatoes question, I guess it is just an irregularity.

Did you mean 'You're finished'? If so, it is just an adjective (can't imagine a passive interpretation, unless we add 'off': He was finished off by whatever (you can tell my imagination is going at a rate of knots here LOL). ('Your finished...' would also be an adjective, modifying/coming in front of a following noun, but the 'finished' would likely be known and assumed in the context, and thus left unsaid: Your (finished) book is really good!).

'You finished' is a pronoun and verb (verb is Simple Past), but it could also be a case of the speaker ellipting 'are': You('re) finished? (It is not passive).

Glenski · Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Posts: 164 Location: Sapporo, Japan

Some words ending in o have es plurals.
tomatoes
potatoes
echoes
heroes
negroes

Nouns ending in a vowel + o have s plurals (radios, zoos), but so do the following.
commandos
concertos
Eskimos
kilos
logos
photos
pianos
solos
sopranos

A few common words ending in o can have both es and s plurals.
buffalo
mosquito
tornado
volcano

Source: Practical English Usage, by Michael Swan