Memoranda plural7/25/2023 ![]() If you go into an art gallery and read the description under the picture that you’re looking at, you’ll see that the medium used to create it is pastel on paper, for example. The word ‘medium’ is used to refer to the material that was used to create an artwork. This pair of words is unusual because the singular and plural meanings are different. ![]() Shortened: memo (singular) or memos (plural)Ĭommon mistakes: memorandas or memorandums 8. Plural form (very formal and rarely used): memorandaĮxample: ‘The bank will send out information memoranda to potential investors next week’. For example, when buying a house, the ‘memorandum of sale’ is a document that contains the essential details of the transaction. It tends to be used in formal or legal contexts. This is a word to describe information that is collected.Ĭommon mistake: datas 7. Pronunciation Note: The spelling at the start of both of these words is pronounced as an /f/ sound. For example, more people than ever are working from home so we could say: ‘Working from home is a recent social phenomenon’. The meaning of this word is to do with something that is observable in a scientific sense we could be talking about the weather, the social sciences, or something that has changed from its natural behavior. For example, ‘To apply for this job, you need to meet the selection criteria’ (more than one requirement must be met). Then we have a set of criteria, these are the rules or requirements by which something is judged. Therefore, the word criterion means a single factor by which something is judged. The meaning of this word goes back to the word ‘critic’ in ancient Greek, which means ‘to judge something’. Pronounce this using the word ‘cry’ again, but this time joined with the word ‘seas’ (like the ocean) ➡ CRY-seas.Ĭommon mistake: crisises 4. Pronounce it using the word ‘cry’ joined with the first syllable of the word sister: ‘sis’. crisis vs crisesĪ crisis is a difficult period in your life where something shocking or unexpected happens. Pronounce it like a tie you wear around your neck ➡ ‘KAK-tie‘.Ĭommon mistake: cactuses 3. These words are scientific terms for mushrooms.Ĭommon mistake: funguses 2. Therefore, both of the sentences below are correct: However, the meaning is often used in the singular, which is acceptable, because few people know or use the singular form ‘datum’. ![]() Note: The word ‘data’ is technically a plural noun. Incorrectly adding -es to make a plural, e.g.Incorrectly adding an –s to a word that is already plural, e.g.Getting the singular and plural forms of the noun mixed up.Since Latin isn’t widely taught nowadays, words with Latin plurals are often used incorrectly in English. These academic and scientific words retain their original Latin singular and plural endings. Words with Latin plurals are the exception. Most English nouns take –s, –es or -ies for their plural form. ✔︎Įnglish Common Mistakes: Latin Plural Endings This package is based on a javascript library that has encoded the core pluralization (and singularization) rules and exposed various functions to aid in maniuplating strings, including the ability to add special case rules (like the “ paper” example).▶︎ Join my email newsletter (get a free lesson and be notified about special offers) For instance, “ paper” would normally turn into “ papers” but you may need it to stay “ paper”. However, you may need to override normal behavior. Then, there are irregular plurals like “ fish” => “ fish” and “ person” => “ people” and others like “ cactus” => “ cacti” or “ erratum” => “ errata”. There are further cases, like “ knife”, where there are special rules that force you to do things like make that “ knives” to get the plural form. While many words can be made plural by just adding an “ s” there are cases where one has to add “es”, “ies” depending on the ending consonant or vowel. The English language makes this a bit more gnarly at times and there are also cases where one might want to bend the rules a bit (i.e. discipline-specific terminology that may not abide by the rules). One of the steps in this normalization process that is often helpful is to take plural words and make them singular vs “stem” them (which often leaves interesting prefixes that work but aren’t exactly “pretty”.) There are times when one needs to do some lightweight text mining and need to normalize words without the baggage that comes along with dependencies such as tm or OpenNLP. ![]() Why ‘pluralize’? Why ‘pluralize’? Bob Rudis ![]()
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