Is it Plural or Singular?
More Latin Plurals
We’ve already tackled data and media, but those two words are by no means the only problems when it comes to plurals used as singular. When dealing with Latin words the question “is it plural or singular” comes up often. Many of these words have long since been fully assimilated into the language and have adopted the normal English singular and plural, but some of them have put up a firm resistance. Let’s look at a few.
Plurals Used As Singular
The following list is by no means comprehensive, but it covers a lot of the more recognizable words.
Latin Words and How They’re Used
I’ve thrown in a few plain-old Italian words also because they’re used so much.
Ravioli/s: you will frequently hear many Italian words used in the plural by adding an s to them, such as raviolis, biscottis, cannolis, etc. This is wrong because the Italian language produces plurals in a different way. They change the vowel to make it plural, so If a word ends in “o” like cannolo, then the plural would be made by changing the “o” to and “i.”
So you’d go into a pastry shop and say “I’ll have a cannolo,” or you’d say “I’ll have six cannoli.” By the same token, if you were at a restaurant and ordering dinner, you’d say “Give us three plates of ravioli,” not “three plates of raviolis.”
When ordering Italian food, you’ll want to ask youself “Is it plural or singular”? And the answer lies in the vowel it ends in, not whether it has an s. Almost all Italian words end in a vowel, and the vowel indicates whether the word is plural or not. A few words end in s but they are typically words that have been borrowed from other languages such as bus.
Because alumnus is associated with academics, it is often cited correctly. The following shows the correct formats:
> alumnus refers to a man and alumna to a woman
> alumni pertains to men or to men and women and alumnae to women;
> alumni is often employed in the singular, and alum/alums are used informally as gender-neutral singular and plural forms
Many of the words listed above are being used in the standard English way though some of them have shown strong resistance (usually those more closely associated with academia or the media). Look at this note from the dictionary app on my computer.
From Dictionary App On Computer
USAGE:
> Based on the Latin forms, the correct singular is candelabrum and the plural is candelabra. However, in practice candelabra is increasingly used as the singular form, with the plural as candelabras. In the Oxford English Corpus these forms are commoner than the traditional ones, and are coming to be regarded as part of standard English.
And the following is from the Macmillan dictionary blog.
Macmillan Blog
> Similarly, the Italian plurals graffiti and paparazzi are widely treated as singular in English, while singular phenomena and fora are edging along this path but are still non-standard, at least in formal writing. Whether “a phenomena” becomes as generally acceptable as “an agenda” depends on the people using the language – the unofficial fora who collectively engineer common usage.
Summary
I’m sure it won’t be long before all the words are fully assimilated into the language. In the meantime, you can join the club and help make the transition quicker, or you can be a staunch holdout and continue to use the words as they were originally meant to be. You decide.
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