Plurals of Numbers Irregular Plurals from Other Languages
Arts and sciences
Chemistry, geometry, surgery, blues, jazz, rock and roll, impressionism, surrealism. This includes those that look plural but function as grammatically
singular in English: mathematics, ethics, physics, mechanics, optics, linguistics, acoustics, etc.; e.g., mathematics is fun.
Chemical elements and other physical entities:
Antimony, gold, oxygen, equipment, furniture, gear, species, air, water, sand, traffic
It is rare to pluralize furniture in this way. Nor would information be so treated, except in the case of criminal informations, which are prosecutors briefs
similar to indictments. There is only one class of atoms called oxygen, but there are several isotopes
of oxygen, which might be referred to as different oxygens. In casual speech, oxygen might be used as shorthand for oxygen atoms, but in this case, it is not a
mass noun, so it is entirely sensible to refer to multiple oxygens in the same molecule.
One would interpret Bobs wisdoms as various pieces of Bobs wisdom that is, dont run with scissors, defer to those with greater knowledge, deceits as a
series of instances of deceitful behavior lied on income tax, dated my wife. Specie and species make a fascinating case. Both words come from a Latin
word meaning kind, but they do not form a singular-plural pair. In Latin, specie is the ablative singular form, while species is the nominative form, which happens
to be the same in both singular and plural. In English, species behaves similarly —
as a noun with identical singular and plural —while specie is treated as a mass
noun, referring to money in the form of coins the idea is of [payment] in kind.
34