Fish vs. Fishes

Mark, as you know, our email box is overflowing, and I wanted to take a minute to respond to one of these emails.

Amanda wrote to say,

I always thought the plural form of fish was fish, but I was wondering when it is appropriate to use the word fishes.

I’ve only seen fishes used when speaking of many different species, and I wouldn’t feel at all comfortable using the word myself.

Amanda, you’ve got it exactly right.

Fishes can be used with impunity as long as you are talking about several different kinds of fish.

For example, he attributes the longstanding confusion over the classification of these fishes to their rarity.

Right?

Okay, different, yeah.

Yeah, it’s a scientific use.

We’re talking about, let’s say, salmon and we’re talking about tuna, two different kinds of fish.

You can call them fishes.

If you’re talking about all salmon or all tuna, you probably would just say fish, right?

What if I go to the counter at the deli and I’m looking at all the different fish?

Well, probably in an informal, non-scientific situation like that, you probably just want to say fish.

But in a scientific kind of academic environment, fishes is okay.

It’s going to be understood, and you’re not going to be laughed at.

I got you.

Anyway, thanks for your email, Amanda.

If you’ve got a question that you’d like us to respond to, by all means, send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

And don’t forget that you can call our phone line 24 hours a day, 1-877-929-9673.