Possessives come up a lot in this column. That’s no surprise. They’re some of the most perplexing issues in English, as we saw in our recent column on Jess’s vs. Jess’ (P.S. both are acceptable). But ...

Could it be that these are animals that were hunted, fished, or herded and that there was a convention that used the singular as a sort of generic plural when going after these creatures for sport or ...

Do you know how we can turn a singular noun into a plural noun? The solution is simple. Just add an '-s' at the end of the word, and whoosh, the job is done. The word 'house' becomes 'houses', 'word' ...

Q: I drive a school bus, and this morning one of my seventh graders said to me, “Monte, did you see those deers on the side of the road?” I explained to him that certain words, like “deer,” are both ...

I've just learned a horrifying fact: I've been pluralizing the name "Prius" incorrectly, and you probably have been, too. Did you assume that the regular rules of English plural words applied, such ...

A natural follow-up to my last column about words that live in the plural seemed to be one about words that don't get the regular "s" at the end. Certain words shun the final "s" to become plural.

The word data leaves some of us in a conundrum. Data is the plural of datum, the Latin word for something given. Ordinarily, the plural word would get a plural verb. The chickens are on their nests.

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