It’s strange.
In English, we say “two donkeys.”
But we then we say, “two sheep.”
We say, “three sharks.”
But then we say, “Five fish.”
We say “Seven bears.”
But then we say “Six dear.”
What happened to the “s”?
Yesterday, a reader made the funny comment that these are “defective plurals.”
What’s a defect?
A defect is an error made when a product is manufactured at a factory.
Example…
“My new Tesla has a small defect: it catches on fire every time I listen to the radio. But it’s still cool.”
Defective language… I like that!
And what else is defective in English?
As a native speaker, my ears don’t notice what’s unusual about the language.
So you tell me!
Share on the blog what you think is strange, unusual, defective about English.
A word… a rule… a sound… whatever!
I’m looking forward to reading your comments.
The most unusual in English that I undergo is the existence of so many words with more than one meaning. If you a not native of English you can just lost in the maze of word meanings…
I agree. Take / put / make / have / get + on, up, of, off … if we combine only these 8 words, we have 1000000000 meaning. How could we learn them?
For me – as a Hungarian – one of the most interesting rule is that in English there is no double negation. In Hungarian we say: I don’t have nothing. or I haven’t done nothing. Meanwhile in English it means the opposite. 😀 Funny, isn’t it?
Serbian has double negations, two.
I don’t have nothing!
I noticed the defective plurals you exemplifed…
I don’t know if there is about a rule.Maybe it’s about different sounds of some words.I don’t know.
În Romanian ( I don’t no about other languages) there are a few nouns that don’t have a plural form but the same form single and plural; for exemple the word peace.
The term for these nouns in Romanian is DEFECTIVE for number but this is not about error, defect. I don” t know how to translate in English this word.
I suppose in every language the word “peace” hasn’t a plural.
when I hear a word, for example, like ought, it sounds like out, which I find very strange
Toyota _____ their newest car last week at the car show. (Up to now, I would say ITS)
Do you agree that the youth these days are addicted to their phones? (Up to now, I would say IS)
there is also in greek. A noun (single) and a verb (plural).
I don’t have any exempel right now
I don´t worry about spelling or grammar rules. Another problem: for me is really strange English sentence structure. I don´t understand it. Hier is very huuudge difference compared to my native language (Estonian). Short sentence – no problem. Long sentence – Terrible! To understand text, I sometimes have to start reading from the end of sentence. It´s not logical, but… My brain just can´t handle that in English language order of words in sentence is absolutely opposite. Is there any good advice? Or only practice and time?
It’s hard for me sometimes to distinguish words that sound the same by listening.
OMG. I deleted all I wrote. And it was so many. I can’t write it again.😂
Questions
Pronunciation
3 “a”….. cat, many, access
3 “u”….. unusual
Many letters are written but not by pronounced… High.
There aren’t rules!!!
I don’t know an other country who has spelling competition 😀
“r” – I love Scotts.😉
“y” is letter which is vowel and consonant together!!!!!
Ryan, do you want more????😂
But I love english language.
❤️❤️❤️❤️
I’ve found the word ‘toothpaste’ very weird, doesn’t out to be ‘teethpaste’
What I found in Anki and it was weird for me.
We say “distinct shape” and “distinctive voice“. Are both of them adjectives? And and how doI know which is correct every time?
I think the phrasal verbs are difficult because there are o lot of these and I cant remember all.
There are many expressions in English and you can know them only if you read a lot and try to fiind the translation or if you talk to somebody who knows very well English and tells you the meaning. By the way of English language i saw a little funny movie of stand-up comedy on Fb
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1580318365823167?s=ywdug2&fs=e
It’s just a rule for the form of plural names in English language.
For me phrasal words and idioms
I recently read something about a parking place, somewhere in USA, perhaps.
It was written Fine Parking and the girl which was questioning why ia she parking that place answered she knows that “FINE” means OK
Both of them: a rule and a sound. And the word, because in English you write one simple word with many levels and tell it with some sound.