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[juststeven]

Twisting In The Wind,
Surely, you must be joking! I know you only have a 'distance' degree from Indiana, (what was it, Philosophy or Comparative Religious Studies or probably Humanities/Liberal Arts) but you must know the plural of a noun!

[carnac]

Correctly, more than one of the same kind of fish (17guppies), the plural is fish. More than one of different kinds of fish (a shark, a tuna, a carp and a grouper) the plural is fishes.

What's the difference between a lawyer and a carp?
One's a bottom-dwelling scumsucker.
The other's a fish.

[Guy Courchesne]

[Brickerage]

[Stephen Jones]

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[Stephen Jones]

To quote for alt.usage

[homersimpson]

Both "fishes" and "mice" are correct usage.

Main Entry: 1fish
Pronunciation: 'fish
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural fish or fish�es
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English fisc; akin to Old High German fisc fish, Latin piscis
1 a : an aquatic animal -- usually used in combination <starfish> <cuttlefish> b : any of numerous cold-blooded strictly aquatic craniate vertebrates that include the bony fishes and usually the cartilaginous and jawless fishes and that have typically an elongated somewhat spindle-shaped body terminating in a broad caudal fin, limbs in the form of fins when present at all, and a 2-chambered heart by which blood is sent through thoracic gills to be oxygenated


Main Entry: 1mouse
Pronunciation: 'maus
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural mice /'mIs/
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English mus; akin to Old High German mus mouse, Latin mus, Greek mys mouse, muscle
1 : any of numerous small rodents (as of the genus Mus) with pointed snout, rather small ears, elongated body, and slender tail
2 : a timid person
3 : a dark-colored swelling caused by a blow; specifically : BLACK EYE
4 : a small mobile manual device that controls movement of the cursor and selection of functions on a computer display

[homersimpson]

Sorry, I forgot to add, apparently for us humans there is an exception:

Main Entry: 1peo�ple
Pronunciation: 'pE-p&l
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural people
Etymology: Middle English peple, from Old French peuple, from Latin populus
1 plural : human beings making up a group or assembly or linked by a common interest
2 plural : HUMAN BEINGS, PERSONS -- often used in compounds instead of persons <salespeople>
3 plural : the members of a family or kinship
4 plural : the mass of a community as distinguished from a special class <disputes between the people and the nobles> -- often used by Communists to distinguish Communists from other people
5 plural peoples : a body of persons that are united by a common culture, tradition, or sense of kinship, that typically have common language, institutions, and beliefs, and that often constitute a politically organized group

[carnac]

And, thanks to Steven Pinker for bringing this up, the plural of Walkman?

And, the plural of syllabus? (Who, I wonder, will respond "syllabi"?)

Who but English teachers, huh?

[Guy Courchesne]

I'll use syllabi simply because syllabuses sounds like I'm having a fit when s-s-s-saying it.

[hobo]

And try saying it with a lisp.

[Guy Courchesne]

thyllabutheth? That's too cruel.

[merlin]

The plural of the thing attached to your computer is mouses
http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxmouses.html
http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticle.aspx?id=104582&catId=100249&tid=100008&p=1
This is merely business savvy, folks. A google search of cheap mice brings up pet shops while cheap mouses brings up the desired product. In the end online suppliers refusing to use the form mouses will become extinct.
The plural of walkman is walkmans.
http://www.ogormans.co.uk/sony2.htm
(of course there are more links but why bother)
I don't speak with a lisp or stutter but I still refuse to say "syllabusses", much less put such an ugly word on my resume/CV.

[carnac]

Quote:
What are the plurals of 'octopus', 'hippopotamus', 'syllabus'?


English words of Latin or Greek origin have rather unpredictable plurals, and each one usually depends on how well established that particular word is. It may also depend on whether the Latin or Greek form of the plural is either easily recognizable or pleasant to the speaker of English.

Although it is often supposed that octopi is the 'correct' plural of octopus, and it has been in use for longer than the usual Anglicized plural octopuses, it in fact originates as an error. Octopus is not a simple Latin word of the second declension, but a Latinized form of the Greek word oktopous, and its 'correct' plural would logically be octopodes.

Other words ending in -us show a very varied pattern. Like octopi, the plural hippopotami is now generally taken to be either funny or absurdly pedantic, and the usual plural is hippopotamuses. Common usage appears to indicate a slight preference for termini rather than terminuses, but syllabuses rather than syllabi.(emphasis added) Other usual forms include cacti and gladioli, and our files at the dictionary department show scarcely any examples of nucleuses or funguses. (Omnibi is simply a joke, and quite ungrammatical in Latin!)

Among words ending in -um it seems worth drawing attention to the word curricula, plural of curriculum, and warning against confusion with the adjective curricular (as in extra-curricular).
End quote

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/plurals?view=uk