We have a friend who has a charming habit of calling the plural of sock, socks’s. This has got me thinking about plurals in general and how our grammar makes English such a difficult language for people to learn.
Years ago, in a Girls Own Annual I came across the most wonderful poem which seems to describe the problem of plurals so well.
But the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice;
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.
English inherited plural patterns from Old English (such as man/men and foot/feet), borrowed many words from Latin, Greek, French, and other languages, and gradually simplified many older endings into the common -s plural. As a result, modern English combines a regular system with a number of historical irregularities. Herein lies the complexity at the heart of much of modern English.
On a lighter note sock's puts me in mind of Fox in Socks by the wonderful Dr Seuss.