Practical Grammar and Composition | Page 5

Thomas Wood
forming the plurals of proper names where a title is used, either the title or the name may be put in the plural form. Sometimes both are made plural; as, Miss Brown, the Misses Brown, the Miss Browns, the two Mrs. Browns.
11. Some nouns are the same in both the singular and the plural; as, deer, series, means, gross, etc.
12. Some nouns used in two senses have two plural forms. The most important are the following:
BROTHER brothers (by blood) brethren (by association) CLOTH cloths (kinds of cloth) clothes (garments) DIE dies (for coinage) dice (for games) FISH fishes (separately) fish (collectively) GENIUS geniuses (men of genius) genii (imaginary beings) HEAD heads (of the body) head (of cattle) INDEX indexes (of books) indices (in algebra) PEA peas (separately) pease (collectively) PENNY pennies (separately) pence (collectively) SAIL sails (pieces of canvas) sail (number of vessels) SHOT shots (number of discharges) shot (number of balls)
13. Nouns from foreign languages frequently retain in the plural the form that they have in the language from which they are taken; as, focus, foci; terminus, termini; alumnus, alumni; datum, data; stratum, strata; formula, formul?; vortex, vortices; appendix, appendices; crisis, crises; oasis, oases; axis, axes; phenomenon, phenomena; automaton, automata; analysis, analyses; hypothesis, hypotheses; medium, media; vertebra, vertebr?; ellipsis, ellipses; genus, genera; fungus, fungi; minimum, minima; thesis, theses.
EXERCISE 3
Write the plural, if any, of every singular noun in the following list; and the singular, if any, of every plural noun. Note those having no singular and those having no plural.
News, goods, thanks, scissors, proceeds, puppy, studio, survey, attorney, arch, belief, chief, charity, half, hero, negro, majority, Mary, vortex, memento, joy, lily, knight-templar, knight-errant, why, 4, x, son-in-law, Miss Smith, Mr. Anderson, country-man, hanger-on, major-general, oxen, geese, man-servant, brethren, strata, sheep, mathematics, pride, money, pea, head, piano, veto, knives, ratios, alumni, feet, wolves, president, sailor-boy, spoonful, rope-ladder, grandmother, attorney-general, cupful, go-between.
When in doubt respecting the form of any of the above, consult an unabridged dictionary.
14. CASE. There are three cases in English: the Nominative, the Possessive, and the Objective.
The NOMINATIVE CASE; the form used in address and as the subject of a verb.
The OBJECTIVE CASE; the form used as the object of a verb or a preposition. It is always the same in form as is the nominative.
Since no error in grammar can arise in the use of the nominative or the objective cases of nouns, no further discussion of these cases is here needed.
The POSSESSIVE CASE; the form used to show ownership. In the forming of this case we have inflection.
15. THE FOLLOWING ARE THE RULES FOR THE FORMING OF THE POSSESSIVE CASE:
1. Most nouns form the possessive by adding the apostrophe and s ('s); as, man, man's; men, men's; pupil, pupil's; John, John's.
2. Plural nouns ending in s form the possessive by adding only the apostrophe ('); as, persons, persons'; writers, writers'. In stating possession in the plural, then one should say: Carpenters' tools sharpened here, Odd Fellows' wives are invited, etc.
3. Some singular nouns ending in an s sound form the possessive by adding the apostrophe alone; as, for appearance' sake, for goodness' sake. But usage inclines to the adding of the apostrophe and s ('s) even if the singular noun does end in an s sound; as, Charles's book, Frances's dress, the mistress's dress.
4. When a compound noun, or a group of words treated as one name, is used to denote possession, the sign of the possessive is added to the last word only; as, Charles and John's mother (the mother of both Charles and John), Brown and Smith's store (the store of the firm Brown & Smith).
5. Where the succession of possessives is unpleasant or confusing, the substitution of a prepositional phrase should be made; as, the house of the mother of Charles's partner, instead of, Charles's partner's mother's house.
6. The sign of the possessive should be used with the word immediately preceding the word naming the thing possessed; as, Father and mother's house, Smith, the lawyer's, office, The Senator from Utah's seat.
7. Generally, nouns representing inanimate objects should not be used in the possessive case. It is better to say the hands of the clock than the clock's hands.
NOTE.--One should say somebody else's, not somebody's else. The expression somebody else always occurs in the one form, and in such cases the sign of the possessive should be added to the last word. Similarly, say, no one else's, everybody else's, etc.
EXERCISE 4
Write the possessives of the following:
Oxen, ox, brother-in-law, Miss Jones, goose, man, men, men-servants, man-servant, Maine, dogs, attorneys-at-law, Jackson & Jones, John the student, my friend John, coat, shoe, boy, boys, Mayor of Cleveland.
EXERCISE 5
Write sentences illustrating the use of the possessives you have formed for the first ten words under Exercise 4.
EXERCISE 6
Change the following expressions from the prepositional phrase form to the
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