Crazy Plurals
She gives me love, love, love, love...crazy love. -Van Morrison, "Crazy Love"
She forms crazy, crazy, crazy plurals. -Tim Warner, "This Ol' Blog Post"
During a recent conversation with some friends one speaker mentioned how tasty the "corns" were at a particular roadside market in town. "Oh yes," she exclaimed. "You'd just grab several ears, shuck 'em, boil 'em, and those corns were so delicious!"
Um...okay.
Look, I swear before my Creator that I'm trying to do my best (with TONS of help) to overcome my problems with arrogance, rage, and my seemingly innumerable list of character defects. However, let me suggest to people such as my golden-hearted albeit "corny" friend: Please, oh please, study your grammar guidelines and sharpen your skills with forming correct singular and plural nouns!
An interesting and often-confused word that fits in with this brief discussion is the noun fish. Is fish singular or plural? Well, as you'll read here or as you'll find if you perform a Google query on this question, you will discover that fish is singular if we are speaking of fish of the same species. By contrast, if we are discussing fish of different species, then we use (yes, believe it) fishes. To wit:
Alan and Samantha caught nine fish, all Northern Pike, on their outing last weekend.
Gary's impressive tropical aquarium includes a startling array of fishes, including my favorites, the Yellow Tang and the Clown fish.