英語小知識|不規則複數——你寫對了嗎?

原標題：英語小知識｜不規則複數——你寫對了嗎？

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Irregular Plurals in English

英語的不規則複數

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By Catherine Soanes

Bacterias, bacteriae, bacterium: which of the three plurals of bacterium is the correct one? Read on, I』ll enlighten you soon as to the correct irregular plural.

bacterias、bacteriae、bacterium：這三種複數形式哪一種是正確的呢？請繼續看下去，我會很快給你講解正確的不規則複數。

With English spelling and grammar setting a fair few traps for the unwary, it’s a reason for a heartfelt 『phew』 of relief that many plurals of nouns are straightforward to form. In most cases, all you need to do is to tack an 『s』 on to the end of the singular:

英語的拼寫和語法規則頗有一些小陷阱需要注意，不過令人欣慰的是許多名詞的複數形式還是簡單明確的。大多數情況下，你只要在單數名詞後面加上個s就行。

SINGULAR

PLURAL

shop

shops

donkey

donkeys

roof

roofs

patio

patios

epoch

epochs

pizza

pizzas

Although some other English plurals can be slightly more tricky, there are a few basic rules which are easy to follow: if you』d like a quick refresher course, why not visit our online ?

不過，有些英語單詞的複數形式相對複雜，但有一些基本的規則：要是想快速複習一下語法課程，可以訪問我們的。

Women, geese, teeth, and children: the Old English survivors

古英語的倖存者：women, geese, teeth, children

There are a handful of exceptions to these rules, mainly plurals of words that come from Old English. So instead of 『a flock of gooses』 we say 『a flock of geese』, we brush our teeth(not 『our tooths』), my sister has three children, not 『three childs』, and police arrested four menrather than 『four mans』. The proportion of such plurals compared with the more usual formations is very small, so it’s easy to learn them. If you’re not sure, all good dictionaries will give the standard plural forms.

這些規則之外的少數例外主要來自於古英語單詞的複數形式。所以，我們會說a flock of geese（一群鵝），我們刷teeth（牙），我的姐姐有三個children（孩子），警察逮捕了四名men（男子）。與大多數常見的複數形式相比，這種不規則的複數比例微乎其微，所以很容易掌握。如果還是不確定，那就查查詞典吧。

Unfortunately, the singularforms of some of these common English words now seem to be causing difficulty. There’s a recent trend to use the plural spelling 『women』 as a singular noun. This mistake crops up in all types of writing, from news articles and academic journals to blogs:

不幸的是，一些常見英語單詞的單數形式現在似乎造成了困難。最近出現一種將複數拼寫的women作為單數名詞使用的趨勢。這種錯誤在各種類型的寫作中大量出現，從新聞報導、學術期刊到博客文章：

✘Eileen was a lovely women, who went about her daily duties in a very refined way.

✘A single womencan have a child now, but not without facing some human complications.

Although 『men』, the plural of 『man』, works in just the same way as the plural of 『woman』, with the change of 『a』 to 『e』, for some reason the erroneous use of the plural spelling 『men』 to refer to a man is much more rare… for now.

雖然man的複數形式是men，一如women也是woman的複數形式，但出於某些原因，將複數的men錯誤用作單數名詞還是很罕見的……到目前為止很罕見。

Old Norse eggs and Italian pianos

古斯堪地那維亞語的eggs和義大利語的pianos

But I digress: one of the main causes of plural puzzlement lies in the fact that English is full of words that have been borrowed from other languages. These loanwords are believed to make up half of all English words, and have been enriching our language for over a thousand years. Many are so well established that we don’t realise they’re borrowings at all: Old Norse gave us freckle and egg; splinter and gherkin are Dutch; hazard and alcohol are Arabic.

說點兒離題的：英語名詞的複數形式之所以多元，一個主要原因在於英語從多種其他語言中借用了大量詞語，人們認為英語詞彙的一半都由外來語構成，它們在過去的一千多年間不斷豐富著英語。很多英語詞彙已然根深蒂固，以至於人們都沒有意識到它們是外來語：例如來自古斯堪地那維亞語的freckle（雀斑）和egg（雞蛋）；來自荷蘭語的splinter（尖碎片）和gherkin（醃小黃瓜）；來自阿拉伯語的hazard（危害）和alcohol（酒精）。

Once they』ve been absorbed into English, most noun loanwords behave in the same way as other English words when it comes to forming their plurals: hazards, freckles, splinters, etc. The main categories of borrowed words that can cause problems for English speakers and writers are those which are sourced chiefly from Latin, ancient Greek, French, and Italian.

大多數外來語一旦被吸收進英語，就如同其他英語單詞一樣使用，形成複數名詞時加上s：hazards、freckles、splinters等。會給英語說者和寫作者造成困擾的外來詞主要源自拉丁語、古希臘語、法語和義大利語。

You can’t blame anyone for being confused: in effect, there are no hard and fast rules as to whether the plurals of such words are:

難怪人們會搞糊塗了：實際上，這樣的單詞複數形式並沒有強制的或硬性的規定：

● formed according to English rules: piano -> pianos (Italian); virus -> viruses (Latin)

- 根據英語規則轉換：piano -> pianos（源自義大利語）；virus -> viruses（源自拉丁語）

● formed according to the rules of the parent language: criterion -> criteria (ancient Greek); bacterium -> bacteria (Latin); paparazzo -> paparazzi (Italian)

- 根據母語規則轉換：criterion -> criteria（源自古希臘語）；bacterium -> bacteria（源自拉丁語）； paparazzo -> paparazzi（源自義大利語）

● formed according to either English rules or those of the original language: cactus -> cacti/cactuses (Latin); virtuoso -> virtuosos/virtuosi (Italian); chateau -> chateaux/chateaus (French)

- 根據英語或者原始語言轉換：cactus -> cacti/cactuses（源自拉丁語）；virtuoso ->virtuosos/virtuosi（源自義大利語）；chateau -> chateaux/chateaus（源自法語）

As before, the best way to ensure you’re correct is to check a good dictionary–it will always give the accepted plural forms of nouns.

正如前言所述，確保複數形式正確的最佳方法就是查本好詞典，詞典總會給你提供最廣為接受的複數形式。

Tangled up in the coils of the language octopus

纏繞在語言中的octopus

✘Sea lions are carnivores and eat fish, squid, octopi, crabs, clams, and lobsters.

As the above example (taken from a US scientific publication) shows, a little knowledge of Latin and Greek can be a dangerous thing and sometimes leads people into error. The writer clearly knows that some Latin plurals are formed by changing the 『-us』 ending of a singular noun into 『-i』 for the plural, as in alumnus -> alumni. However, octopus is ultimately borrowed from a Greek word and not a Latin one, so it’s incorrect to form the plural according to the Latin rules. If you wanted to be ultra-correct and conform to ancient Greek, you』d talk about octopodes, but this is very rare: the Anglicized plural, octopuses, is absolutely fine.

正如取自美國科技出版物的上述例子顯示，對拉丁語或希臘語認知過少可能會有危險，有時會讓人出錯。這個例句的作者很清楚地知道，一些拉丁語的複數形式是將單數的-us結尾改寫成-i結尾，例如alumnus -> alumni。但是，octopus最初是借鑑於希臘語而不是拉丁語，所以按照拉丁語的規則轉換成複數就不正確了。如果你想超級正確並符合古希臘語的規則，那就要說octopodes，不過這種形式非常罕見：還是採用英國化的複數形式吧，octopuses就非常好了。

Given that people are unsure about the origins of English words and the correct formation of their plurals, it’s hardly surprising that a raft of mistakes have arisen. Take criterion, for example. It’s borrowed from ancient Greek, and the plural is formed according to Greek grammar: criteria. However, many people use criteria as if it were a singular noun (that is, they use it with a singular verb):

鑑於人們對於英語詞彙的起源以及它們的正確複數形式未必非常確定，那出現一系列錯誤也就不足為奇。以criterion一詞為例，它借自古希臘語，根據希臘語語法，正確的複數形式為criteria。然而，很多人把criteria當作單數名詞使用，因而用單數動詞：

✘We thought that criteria wassatisfied.

It gets worse: once people start thinking that words like criteria and phenomena are singular rather than plural, there’s a tendency for them to want to add an 『s』 to form the 『plural』, as these erroneous examples show:

更糟的是：一旦人們開始認為，像criteria和phenomena這樣的單詞是單數名詞而不是複數名詞時，就往往會想添加s形成複數名詞，正如以下的錯誤例子所示：

✘First there were three criteriasthat were considered.

✘Some pilots fly to specific regions to witness natural phenomenaslike hurricanes.

Compounding the errors yet further…

更多錯誤來襲……

This brings us back to the question I posed at the outset, regarding the plural of bacterium. It’s time to come clean and admit that it was a trick question: all the 『plurals』 given are wrong. The correct way of referring to more than one bacterium is bacteria:

這使得我們回到文章開頭提出的關於bacterium一詞的複數問題。現在是時候搞清這個棘手的問題：開頭給出的三個複數形式都是錯誤的。正確的複數形式為bacteria：

✔Some bacteriaare becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

✘Her 「wildest」 theory is that a $30 device could zap disease-causing viruses, bacterias, and parasites.

✘Two bacteriumsyielded enzymes capable of removing both A and B antigens from red blood cells.

✘How long does the bacteriaelive on furniture, wooden products, etc?

The last example indicates that some people believe bacteria to be a Latin singular and so the plural is formed according to the Latin rules for words such as alga -> algae. A commendably logical approach, and showing a partial understanding of Latin, but totally wrong because it’s based on the misconception that bacteria is singular. The bacteriae plural form appears to be pretty common, however, and appears in many online scientific papers, where the writers really should know better.

最後一個例句表明，有些人認為bacteria是個拉丁語詞彙，於是根據拉丁語語法變化複數形式，如alga -> algae。這個邏輯很好，也展示了寫作者對拉丁語的部分了解，但這完全是錯誤的，因為其邏輯是基於錯誤地認為bacteria是個單數名詞。然而，bacteriae這種複數形式似乎還很普遍，出現在很多在線科技論文中，這些文章的作者真的需要改一改了。

A similar thing happens with the Greek loanword, phenomenon. Because people think that phenomena is the singular and that it’s a Latin word, they commit a double faux pas and form the 『plural』 by adding 『e』 to phenomena:

類似的錯誤也會出現在希臘語外來語中，如phenomenon。由於人們認為phenomena是個單數名詞，而且源自拉丁語，於是添加e形成複數形式：

✘Did records of events like the comet in the Bayeaux tapestry help early astronomers understand astronomical phenomenae?

Why do you feel compelled to quote ignorami [sic] and idiots?

為什麼一定要用ignorami和idiots？

So what about ignoramus? Should we emulate the above writer (it’s a real example, taken from the Oxford English Corpus) and refer to several ignorami? Nope! Ignoramus is something of an anomaly—true, it’s a Latin loanword, but it was never actually a noun. Those of you who chanted Latin verbs at school may dimly recall that the 『-us』 ending is used for the first person plural form: ignoramus actually means 『we do not know』. Being a verbal form rather than a noun means that it doesn’t follow that the plural is ignorami. To form the plural in English, you add 『-es』 to the end (ignoramuses), just as you would with virus -> viruses. Ironically, the person who wrote the question above is revealing their own ignorance.

那單詞ignoramus呢？我們應該效仿上面例句的寫作者（這是一個真實的例子，來自牛津英語語料庫），用該詞指多個ignorami嗎？不！單詞ignoramus（無知的人）是個不規則的詞——確實，它是拉丁語外來詞，但其實它以前根本就不是名詞。在學校背過拉丁語動詞的人也許還模糊記得，第一人稱複數形式的動詞以-us結尾：ignoramus其實指的是we do not know（我們不知道）。既然是動詞而非名詞，拉丁語中將-us結尾的名詞轉換成複數形式時去掉-us變為-i的規則就不適用了。在英語中，要形成複數名詞，我們只要在結尾加上-es，變為ignoramuses即可，就如virus -> viruses。諷刺的是，ignoramus源自單詞ignorare，即ignore。那麼，寫出上述疑問句的人也暴露了自己的ignorance（無知）。

（文字整理自「牛津詞典」，圖片來自網絡）

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