When we talk about more than one of something, we often add an “s” at the end of the word. For example, one cat becomes two cats, and one house becomes two houses. However the English language can be tricky, and not all words follow this simple rule. A great example of this is the word “goose,” which refers to a large bird that many of us are familiar with. When we want to talk about more than one goose, we don’t say “gooses” or “geeses.” Instead, we use the word “geese.”
The Correct Plural of Goose: Geese
The right way to say more than one goose is “geese“. This is an example of an irregular plural. Irregular plurals are words that don’t follow the usual rules for making something plural. Instead of just adding an “s” or “es”, the word changes completely.
Why Not Geeses or Gooses?
You might be wondering why we can’t say “geeses” or “gooses”. The reason is that “geese” is already the plural form of “goose”, and in English, we don’t add an extra “s” or “es” to words that are already plural.
- “Geeses” is not a word because “geese” is already plural. Adding another “s” would be like saying “sheeps” instead of “sheep”.
- “Gooses” might sound like it makes sense, but it’s not correct because “goose” is one of those words that change completely when they become plural.
Why the Change?
You might be wondering why this happens. Why does “goose” change to “geese” when there’s more than one? Well, it’s because of a very old rule in the English language that comes from even older languages, like the ones spoken by the Vikings and the Germans a long, long time ago.
Back in those days, people changed the middle part of some words to make them mean more than one, instead of adding an “s” or “es” at the end like we often do today. This old way of changing words stuck around for a few words, and “goose” is one of those special cases.
To learn more about another interesting plural case, check out What’s the Plural of Roof? Roofs or Rooves?.
