Talk:irregular plural

RFD discussion: February–March 2019
SOP. Per utramque cavernam 13:31, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Why? They do exist. Keep for the same reason as . DonnanZ (talk) 20:13, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Appendix:English irregular nouns does list irregular plurals, but they occur in other languages too. DonnanZ (talk) 20:23, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * You realise we're talking about words here, not concepts, right?
 * As to your question "why?", I'll repeat myself if it pleases you: SOP, as in "Sum-Of-Parts". Per utramque cavernam 20:31, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. DonnanZ (talk) 01:02, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * You're confusing words and concepts, and you're asking for a rationale which I've already provided, so pardon me if I sound a bit disgruntled. Do you have anything of substance to answer? Per utramque cavernam 08:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I could say a lot more, but it's better left unsaid. DonnanZ (talk) 15:42, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Please go ahead, I'm interested. Per utramque cavernam 18:55, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * So do words with plurals that don't end in "s", but we wouldn't want a dictionary entry for words with plurals that don't end with "s" Chuck Entz (talk) 05:17, 4 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep. A dictionary should carefully define terms describing the construction of words. bd2412 T 03:44, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't know what that means. Everything could be accomplished at, why isn't that enough? Per utramque cavernam 08:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The appropriate place to explain various linguistic (grammatical, phonological, rhetorical) concepts “carefully” would be in the appendices. We have Appendix:Glossary; I imagine that (if desired) this could be expanded, although it is simpler to refer to Wikipedia’s section on in the article over there on  (to which  redirects).  --Lambiam 15:24, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per BD2412 John Cross (talk) 06:23, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete, SoP. --Lambiam 15:24, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete, SOP. Compare "irregular verb", "irregular pluralization", "irregular inflection", ... - -sche (discuss) 20:36, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Bizarre reasoning that terms related to the dictionary are subject to laxer rules is unexpected from the likes of . —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:47, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I have not proposed any laxer rules. "irregular plural" is a set phrase, and should meet the CFI. bd2412 T 04:53, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * That's a valid argument. We don't normally keep set phrases and collocations if they're not idiomatic, and CFI does not say we should, but you could conceivably argue that CFI should change to reflect that view. (I would disagree.) That wasn't the argument that you made, however, which was based on the how the term descibes "the construction of words". —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 05:01, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Try this on, then: the plural of "irregular" is irregulars. However, "irregulars" is not an irregular plural. Therefore, a phrase referring to plurals that are irregular, and not to the plural of irregular, is idiomatic. Also, just for fun, other languages contain both the word "irregular" (with the same meaning) and "plural" (with the same meaning), but don't construct the phrase the same. bd2412 T 05:21, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * "Try this on, then: the plural of "irregular" is irregulars. However, "irregulars" is not an irregular plural. Therefore, a phrase referring to plurals that are irregular, and not to the plural of irregular, is idiomatic." > huh, what?
 * "Also, just for fun, other languages contain both the word "irregular" (with the same meaning) and "plural" (with the same meaning), but don't construct the phrase the same" > Which ones? Per utramque cavernam 18:01, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Spanish and Portuguese, I believe. bd2412 T 19:17, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Like Puck, I cannot figure out how your word game ties into idiomaticity at all. As for your new THUB argument, plural irregular is how you say "irregular plural" in Spanish. (Shocking, I know.) —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:42, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Ergo, not constructed the same way. bd2412 T 21:19, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * What? It's constructed the exact same way. Are you confused by the fact that adjectives generally follow the nouns they modify in Spanish? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 21:24, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Are you arguing that a construction with an adjective following the noun is exactly the same as a construction in the opposite order? I'm afraid that pursing that line of thought would end up leading a lot of foreign-language readers astray. bd2412 T 04:49, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, it has nothing to do with lexicology. That's a grammatical feature, but we're not a grammar book. From a lexical standpoint, it's a perfectly straightforward translation (and so would be 🇨🇬), thus THUB doesn't apply. Per utramque cavernam 12:24, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I tried it on, but it doesn't fit. The word "irregular" is not irregular. True. But then, "ninety words" isn't ninety words- just two. Does that mean that "ninety words" is idiomatic? Those quote marks are there for a reason- to make it clear that a word is not the same as that to which it refers. Try this on: legal misfeasance can be illegal- does that make "legal misfeasance" idiomatic? Chuck Entz (talk) 08:42, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Wiktionary lists "childs" as a nonstandard and rare plural of "child", the word "childer" is also defined as being the plural of child but obsolete outside Ireland. In one sense Children is the regular/normal/standard plural so I don't think the term is a transparent sum of parts.  John Cross (talk) 06:42, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * You appear to be arguing that we don’t have a transparent sum of parts because the collocation “regular plural” can also mean “standard plural”. In other words, to understand a use of “regular plural” one has to determine the intended sense of the adjective by choosing the appropriate one in the context. Indeed, but how is that an argument for selecting one sense – the linguistic one – and giving it sort of a preferred status?  --Lambiam 06:10, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
 * John Cross makes sense here. Even a native English-speaker unfamiliar with linguistics may think that "wives", "knives", "lives", "calves", "wolves", "hooves", and "leaves" are all "regular" plurals because they follow a common and familiar scheme of pluralization, i.e., that pluralizing words ending in "f" or "fe" with a "ves" is the "regular" thing to do, or is done in a "regular" fashion. The fact that the phrase "irregular plural" encompasses things that an average speaker of the language would intuitively consider "regular" makes the primary meaning of the phrase "regular plural" idiomatic. bd2412 T 15:03, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
 * And is an irregular alternative plural of . DonnanZ (talk) 19:30, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * If it's to be kept on such a basis, e.g. a basis that "wife -> wives" may intuitively seem regular but actually counts as irregular (if I understand your point correctly), then the definition needs expanding. Presently it reads "A plural that does not follow the normal rules for its inflexion", which does not assist in the "wife/wifes/wives" question as it just transfers the question to the meaning of "normal rules". Mihia (talk) 11:52, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Good point. I have amended the definition to read: "A plural that does not follow the normal rule of forming its inflexion solely by the addition of the letter "s", or of the letters "es" to a word ending with an "-s", "-ss", "-ch", "-sh", "-x", or "-o"" (emphasis added to the amended portion). bd2412 T 23:03, 12 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Having worked on revising the definition, it has also become apparent that some words have more than one plural, and the "regular" plural (i.e., the one most commonly used) is "irregular", while the "irregular" plural (the one not commonly used) is "regular". For example, the plural of "fish" is "fish" (as in there are plenty of fish in the sea); an uncommon variation is "fishes", but by the rules of construction, the regularly used "fish" is an irregular plural and the irregularly used "fishes" is a regular plural. <i style="background:lightgreen">bd2412</i> T 00:25, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * So all Italian plurals are irregular? What about Chinese? Chuck Entz (talk) 05:00, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * All Italian plurals are by definition irregular within the confines of the English language, which has words that are pluralized (irregularly) by the substitution of an "i" for the final letter(s). <i style="background:lightgreen">bd2412</i> T 05:18, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I have further adjusted the definition to state:
 * A plural that does not follow the normal rules of its language in forming its inflection, particularly a plural in the English language formed other than by the addition of the letter "s", or of the letters "es" to a word ending with an "-s", "-ss", "-ch", "-sh", "-x", or "-o".
 * If that isn't idiomatic, I don't know what is. <i style="background:lightgreen">bd2412</i> T 05:21, 13 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. Equinox ◑ 05:25, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Blatant SOP and also a dubious concept. Fay Freak (talk) 02:54, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Abstain - There is no specific "grammar" sense in the definitions of irregular that fully covers the use of this adjective in the terms "irregular plural", "irregular verb", "irregular adjective", etc. So perhaps this is what is needed. I note that Google Books has examples of "irregular singulars".- Sonofcawdrey (talk) 00:35, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete, but add linguistic-specific sense to . Something like "Not inflecting according to regular or expected patterns in a given language." Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:30, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I support adding this. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:16, 25 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I count 3 in favour of keeping (Donnanz, BD, and John), 7 in favour of deleting (PUC, Lambiam, -sche, me, Eq, Fay, and Andrew), and 1 abstention (Sonofcawdrey). Chuck seemingly argued for deletion, but did not cast a vote. A formal 70% is consistent with closing this as RFD failed. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:16, 25 March 2019 (UTC)