Humor  has been defined as the sudden occurrence of the unexpected. A funny (humorous) plural, it follows by logologic, is a plural that ends with an unexpected letter.  Since most plurals in English are formed by adding an S to the singular, plurals that end with other letters are funny (strange)

Cole, Chris

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1 H 34 FUNNY PLURALS ]K L M N QR oCHRIS COLE Newport Beach, Cal Hornia DAN Tl LQUE PPortl and. Oregon "Humor" has been defined as the sudden occurrence of the unex­Spected. A funny (humorous) plural, it follows by logologic, is a plural that ends with an unexpected letter. Since most plurals in English are formed by adding an S to the singular, plurals T U Vthat end with other letters are funny (strange). Several lists of funny plurals ending with each letter of the alphabet have been previously published in Word Ways (Dave Sil­verman I s Kickshaws (The Plural Project) in August 1970, Ralph Beaman's "Pluralities" in November 1970 and February 1971 with addenda in February 1972 and May 1982 Colloquy). However, such lists usually contain a plurality of collective nouns (nouns where the plural is the same as the singular, like FISH). These are exa< the analogues of puns. Equally pun-like are plurals of hyphenated Swords where a nonterminal part of the word is pluralized (like doe~ MOTHERS-IN-LAW). Funnier are plurals that differ from the singular due to the cha nge of internal letters (like MEN). The funn iest plurals are formed by adding a letter other than S to the end of the word. These words are derived from languages other than English that use sounds other than S to indicate plurality. Thus, we have a logological challenge: what is the funniest list of plurals we can find? Below is a list of funny plurals, scored from 0 to 3 with 0 being fun niest: i yZ W x A o 1plural formed (basically) by adding a lelter pI u ra I spelled differently from singula r 2 plural spelled differen tly from singular, and contains punctua tion 3 plural spelled the same as the singular AU entries are from Merriam-Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary, except those marked N13. which are from the Third International; entries in brackets are probable dictionary artifacts. Can readers improve on this list? A vas vasa 0 B Slubbi Sleyb (N13) 1 C ,-alpulli calpullec (NI3) 0 D grant-in-aid grants-in-aid 2 E ala alae 0 F sharif ashraf (NI3) 1 G aire airig (N13) 0 35 H tira 1i rot h 0 I ban bani 0 ] Kharijite Khawarij (N13) 1 K pu1i pull k 0 L armful armsful 1 M goy goyim 0 N krone kronen 0 o	 derri.ng-do derrings-do (NU) 2 [Meo Miao (NI3) 1, Mixteca Mixteco (N13) 1, papiopio papio (NI3) 1, Sumu Sumo (N13l I] P aide-de-camp, aides-de-camp 2 Q Qaraqalpaq Qaraqalpaq (NI3) 3 R krone kroner 0 x­ S	 a as 0is T	 matzo matzot 0als U	 haler haleru 0als V Ttv Ttv (N13) 3 W son-in-law sons-i.n-Iaw 2 [Kwapa Quapaw (NI3) 1] X eau eaux 0 Y grosz groszy 0 Z hertz hertz 3 Another way a plural could be funny is by pluralizing in the exact opposite way one expects: that is, by dropping a terminal S instead of adding one. Can the reader think of a word that does this (see Answers and Solutions)? 5, , 1·, rs THE PALlNDRCME FAMIL~ 

Funny Plurals

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Funny Plurals

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