Spanish: An Essential Grammar

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The plural of compound nouns

Compound words consisting of a verb or preposition and a plural noun
have no distinct plural form:
el/los salvapantallas screensaver/s
el/los paracaídas parachute/s

In compounds forming single words in which the last element is not plural,
a normal plural is formed:
el mirasol los mirasoles sunflower/s
In compound nouns formed from two separate nouns, only the first usually
takes a normal plural form:
el barco vivienda los barcos vivienda houseboat/s
However, if the second noun can be regarded as qualifying the first, then
both will be pluralized: país miembro/países miembros‘member country/
countries’, documento maestro/documentos maestros ‘master document/s’.
There is disagreement over the use of clave: puntos claveor claves ‘key
points’.

The plural of foreign words

The general trend is to form plurals only by the addition of -s, even if the
word ends in a consonant. Some words of French origin at times drop the
final -t:
el córner los córners corner/s (football)
el barman los barmans barman/barmen
el cabaret/cabaré los cabarets/cabarés cabaret/s
Some foreign words ending in consonants have, however, become incor-
porated into Spanish following the usual practice of adding -es, whereas in
other cases two forms compete for acceptance:
el hotel los hoteles hotel/s
el gol los goles goal/s

el escáner/scanner los escáneres/scanners scanner/s
el club los clubs/clubes club/s

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