spelling, but today, the preferred spelling is the simple s:
(^) Note that if the word is an abbreviation, we simply add an s:
(^) Spelling rule # 7: When forming plurals of hyphenated words, the general rule is to give the plural
ending to the most important word, which is usually a noun.
(^) Spelling rule #8: There are numerous irregular plurals:
(^) Note that women, children, and oxen date back a thousand years to the Anglo-Saxon.
Spelling rule #9: Some nouns are always singular. They have no plural form.
(^) Some nouns are always plural and have no singular form:
(^) And some words are neither singular nor plural, or perhaps they’re both:
(^) English contains numerous foreign words that have not been anglicized, and their plurals are often
spelled in different ways. But many of these are changing, sometimes right before our eyes. Our prickly
friend the cactus, for example, may now be pluralized to cactuses instead of cacti, although most
botanists prefer to use just cactus for both the singular and the plural. As for the poor old hippopotamus,
in the herd, they are now hippopotamuses or, better still, just hippos.
The reduction of long, awkward words to short, clear abbreviations, such as hippo, is quite acceptable.
For example, the piano was once called the pianoforte. Similarly gladioli or gladioluses are more
commonly called glads and chrysanthemums are most often referred to as mums.
Of course, there are some who decry this modernizing of old and familiar words, but it fits the historic
pattern. English has always taken words and changed them, and the changes have almost always been
toward a simpler spelling that fits the spelling rules. In Italian, for example, the plural of maestro is
maestri, but since we have borrowed the word, we give it the English plural, maestros.
Some words with irregular plurals may or may not be in the process of change. Only time will tell.
Consider the following examples: