Jose Carillo's English Forum
General Category => Language Humor at its Finest => Topic started by: Joe Carillo on November 19, 2010, 10:10:27 PM
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Singular Singulars and Peculiar Plurals
How singular some old words are!
I know two with no singular.
Agenda and marginalia: Both
Are always plural, ’pon my oath.
The opposite’s the case to greet us
With propaganda and coitus,
Upon these never sets the sun,
And yet of each there’s only one.
Phantasmagoria, likewise,
Pervades, yet never multiplies.
Strata pluralises stratum,
Ultimata and ultimatum.
Memoranda and memorandum
Candelabra and candelabrum.
Why are nostrums then not nostra?
Why speak I not then from rostra?
Thus my datum grows to data,
My erratum to errata.
Child, put this on your next agendum.
Pudenda’s more than are pudendum
Medium makes media.
Criterion, criteria.
What’s plural for hysteria?
(Author Unknown)
—From the English for Students website (http://www.english-for-students.com/Peculiar-Plurals.html)