| 词组 | plurals |
| 释义 | plurals Rules for the formation of plurals can be found in many dictionaries, handbooks, and style manuals, and we do not intend to summarize them all here. Several special aspects of plural formation, however, have received attention in a number of usage books, and we will note them briefly. 1. Proper names. Personal names, especially those ending in -s, seem to be the proper nouns most often mentioned in usage books. The standard way of pluralizing most problematic proper names is shown in this example: • ... to think of these characters of fiction—from the Charlie McCarthys and the Mr. Chipses and Mrs. Minivers of the present hour—back to the Huck Finns and the Pickwicks —Leacock 1943 Use of an apostrophe to form the plural of a name like Mr. Chips is considered by many to be an error. (There is a fuller treatment of proper nouns in Webster's Standard American Style Manual.) 2. Letters, numerals, symbols, and other oddities . Older style recommended apostrophe plus -s to make the plurals of such things as 1, 1920, and &. Newer style recommends just -s. Currently the older style and the newer style are used with about equal frequency. In the following example the author has chosen apostrophe plus -s to pluralize sounds spelled in ordinary letters: • We sprinkle our speech with nonverbal sound effects, snorts and mm's, sighs and tsk's —Mitchell 1979 See also apostrophe 3. |
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