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I am having trouble understanding the plural form of nouns with the suffix "full". For example, if I have a tablespoon of sugar, and want to double it, it would be two tablespoons that are full of sugar - or to me - two tablespoonsful of sugar. But, according to the dictionary, once I add the suffix "full" to the word "tablespoon" (and other words like it) and wish to make it plural, it then becomes tablespoonfuls which is just weird. I know it is a noun with a plural ending, but it just doesn't sound or feel right to use it that way. This is true of other words using the "full" suffix. Please explain.
mickytoo said:
I am having trouble understanding the plural form of nouns with the suffix "full". For example, if I have a tablespoon of sugar, and want to double it, it would be two tablespoons that are full of sugar – or to me – two tablespoonsful of sugar. But, according to the dictionary, once I add the suffix "full" to the word "tablespoon" (and other words like it) and wish to make it plural, it then becomes tablespoonfuls which is just weird. I know it is a noun with a plural ending, but it just doesn't sound or feel right to use it that way. This is true of other words using the "full" suffix. Please explain.
Could you be saying two tablespoons full of sugar? This brings to my mind two separate tablespoons.
However, the physicist in me wants tablespoonful to be a unit of measure. Therefore, any number of them beyond one would be tablespoonfuls not unlike more (or maybe even less) than one would be kilometers (say, 0.635 kilometers). (Zero point five feet per second also sounds right.)
Emmett
For what it's worth, mickytoo, I too have had this question. Once I learned that some plurals are constructed in odd ways—I have in mind "passers-by", "mothers-in-law", "courts-martial" and the like—I began to wonder why it wasn't also more proper to speak of bowlsful. Eventually I gave up, and accepted that the prefix "-ful" is part of a full word not (so to speak) a compound word, and that therefore the plural of "spoonful" is "spoonfuls". Or at least that's how I rationalize it to myself.
This doesn't really answer the question, but as I was considering this, I realized that I never use these words with the suffix "ful". If I am adding more than one tablespoon to a mixture I say, "Here are two tablespoons of sugar" (or whatever) I use every one of the examples mentioned the same way. I know that using the suffix is a correct thing to do so it makes me wonder about my way of speaking. I think my way is correct as well, but is one way preferred over the other?
I grew up using both forms of the plural. I was taught a distinction, but I don't really think it holds up, at least, these days. Merriam-Webster online lists two forms of the plural for spoonful, teaspoonful, and tablespoonful.
spoonfuls spoonsful
teaspoonfuls teaspoonsful
tablespoonfuls tablespoonsful
Same for
cupful cupfuls cupsful
bucketful bucketfuls bucketsful
handful handfuls handsful
etc.
Boy, that was a mouthful! (plural mouthfuls only?!)
For what it is worth, the distinction I was taught was to use the regular plural when discussing the amount as a measurable quantity, but to use the irregular plural when discussing the quantity as countable. Examples:
In the US, a tablespoon holds three teaspoonfuls of sugar.
Add two teaspoonsful of sugar to the batter, one at a time.
I doubt this distinction holds a teaspoonful of water, though. It was, nonetheless, what I was taught.
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.[edit: added the following]
I just stumbled upon this great NY Times archived column from December 4, 1897, entitled Spoonsful and Mouthsful, discussing "the chronic controversy as to the proper plural of spoonful, et hoc genus omne." (I love it!) Spoonsful and Mouthsful
This surprises me. I didn't know there was any debate about the proper plural; I just supposed that "spoonfuls" was correct and "spoonsful" was logical but incorrect, and people like me (and mickytoo) who asked the question would just have to accept the answer.
As for your question, Dick (when to use "teaspoon" and when "teaspoonful"), I've never heard a rule but it seems to me that when I'm measuring I could put in three tablespoonfuls of vanilla but would be more likely to say I was adding three tablespoons. But when I'm complaining about my little brother I probably would say he dumped a whole bowlful of chowder on my head, not a whole bowl. I don't know that I can take my thinking any further than that.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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