Proper Plurals

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. My name is Laura, and I’m calling from San Diego.

Hello, Laura. Welcome.

Hi, Laura. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Grant. Thank you. I have a question about the appropriate ending for a certain plural word.

And I’m taking a class right now, and one of the speakers who deals with the subject of mental illness kept saying analysis as the plural of analysis and like psychosis.

I always learned that words that ended in that IS form, you drop the IS and you add an ES for the plural.

But because it’s been a long time since I’ve been in school, I thought perhaps the rules maybe were adjusting with the language and thought maybe you could help me with that.

So, Laura, you’re saying that this person said that the plural of analysis is…

Analysises.

Analysises?

Analysises?

Oh, please.

Diagnoses.

Diagnoses and yes.

No.

They were serious, right?

It wasn’t a joke.

Yeah, he was actually teaching a course.

Oh, my gosh.

Otherwise, you know, he was very well informed with the course.

It’s just that these certain words really grated on my nerves.

And I thought, well, maybe it’s changing because the language always does change and evolve.

It’s true.

Or devolve.

Well, just to clarify, the reason that we’re giggling is that he’s wrong, and it’s kind of embarrassing to see somebody be so consistently wrong straight through, isn’t it?

A little bit, but it’s another situation where I believe also English is a second language.

That could make a difference.

Although his English is perfect otherwise.

Right.

Yeah, God forbid anyone should ever judge me speaking Spanish, my Spanish and my French.

So, yeah, lots of slack always needs to be cut for second learners of English, because it’s a tough road to hoe.

Yeah.

And you did understand what he meant.

You understood what he meant.

I definitely did.

But he is also wrong.

And maybe the best service that you could do him is to take him out for coffee or something and find a way to bring it up.

I don’t think the anonymous note is the way to go here because people usually get really red-faced and embarrassed by that and then they think that they look around the room and wonder who’s judging them.

It’s got to be a face-to-face thing.

You might just do him a favor and say, hey, I just wanted to share this with you.

There’s a great show on the radio called The Way With Words.

Yeah, here’s this segment you really should listen to.

Because you would be doing him a big favor, and I’m betting if he’s any kind of gentleman and professional that he’d be thankful.

Okay, yes.

I will probably be seeing him again through these classes.

So I will definitely subtly let him know that there is this more preferred way of ending these words.

Yeah, that’s a tough one. That’s a tough order, isn’t it?

He’s your professor. He’s your teacher.

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.

If you have any kind of, if there’s any way you can bring the level of the seriousness of the conversation down a couple notches, that’s why I suggested coffee before you bring it up.

Because if it’s one of those things where you’re encountering him after class, as he’s getting his papers and we’re about to leave the room, that’s just really not going to work.

Maybe I’ll actually bring him coffee.

Oh, there we go. Yeah, something like that.

Or the polished apple always works.

Oh, there we go.

Well, good luck with that, Laura.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Take care, Laura.

Thanks for calling.

All right.

Bye-bye.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

So to reiterate, it’s analysis is pluralized as analyses.

Psychosis becomes psychoses.

Diagnosis becomes diagnoses.

And parenthesis becomes parentheses.

But process does not become processes.

It doesn’t?

No.

Oh, processes.

Processes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think what’s going on here is that a lot of these words are coming into English via Latin and originally from Greek.

Right.

And occasionally we’ll retain some of the features of the original language, but not often.

Exactly.

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