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The plural sister-in-laws is occasionally seen, but this is considered incorrect by most sources; see, for example, [1], despite being a common construction in ..
Noun sis·ter–in–law \ˈsis-t(ə-)rən-ˌlȯ, -tərn-ˌlȯ\. : the sister of your husband or wife. : the wife of your brother. Missing Downton Abbey? Check out the 7 terms ..
He belongs to her sister-in-law, who has been missing for days. My sister-in-law bought a bunch of holiday-themed fabrics, and sewed them into bags. That's the ..
Nov 4, 2013.. If you had more than one sister-in-law, how would you talk about them? Think you know? How about if you wanted to refer to more than one ..
If you had more than one sister-in-law, how would you talk about them? Think you know? How about if you wanted to refer to more than one right of way? Would you say rights of way or rights of ways? Here are a few more plural brain-teasers: A clue: there’s sometimes more than one accepted form (the answers are revealed at the end*). Overall, the formation of plural nouns in English spans the spectrum of straightforward to tricky: there’s a handy guide here to the basics. Thankfully, you can pluralize many one-word nouns simply by adding a final ‘s’. On the other hand, there are some thornier cases which need more care: one of these is how to form plurals of words that entered English from other languages, about which I’ve posted before. As you might have gathered from tackling the above mini-test, a further common area of perplexity is the pluralization of some compound nouns, that is, nouns made up of two or more existing words, of which father-in-law is an example. Such nouns can be written in three different ways: 1. As one word (called a closed compound): footstep, schoolchild, bookcase. 2. As two or more separate words (known as an open compound): table lamp, nuclear family, right of way. 3. With a hyphen or hyphens: build-up, lady-in-waiting, brain-teaser, yes-man. As the focus here is on plurals rather than spelling, I’m not going to discuss the whys and wherefores of hyphenation versus open or closed forms. Instead, let’s look at some rules for forming the plurals of compounds. The good news is that for many such nouns, all you need do to make the plural is to think about how the final word is pluralized and follow the same rules. You can apply these rules regardless of how the compound is written. b) Compounds containing a noun and a preposition Some common examples of these compounds are words such as passer-by, hanger-on, and washer-up, in which the noun element ends in -er and is followed by a preposition. Plurals are formed by adding an ‘s’ to the noun: passers-by; hangers-on; washers-up. However, other compound nouns ending with a preposition are typically formed from a verb plus a preposition. Examples are build-up, set-to, add-on, and lay-by. Their plurals follow Rule 1 above – that is, you add an ‘s’ to the final element of the compound: build-ups; set-tos; add-ons; lay-bys. c) Compounds containing a prepositional phrase All the ‘-in-law’ words (e.g. son-in-law, mother-in-law) come into this category, as do compound nouns such as maid of honour, man about town, editor-in-chief, and right of way. The rule to follow with such words is to pluralize the main noun and leave the prepositional phrase unaltered: sons-in-law; maids of honour; men about town; editors-in-chief; rights of way Rule 4: use a dictionary All spellings in any good dictionary are based on the evidence of the living, changing language, which lexicographers constantly monitor. In the case of Oxford Dictionaries, lexicographers trawl through vast databases such as the Oxford English Corpus (OEC) tracking developments in spelling (as well as in meaning, of course). Over time, accepted usage changes, and lexicographers amend dictionary entries accordingly. This accounts for the fact that some of the compounds discussed here have more than one plural in the dictionary. Let’s take the case of compounds having postpositive adjectives. Because many people aren’t aware that the final words in these compounds are adjectives, forms such as court martials and poet laureates have now become established through usage as alternative plurals and you’ll find them in the dictionary. Other plurals could be gaining ground too: passers-by (also spelled passersby) is currently the standard plural, with 5,481 occurrences on the OEC. At present, the OEC only records 71 instances of passerbys or passer-bys (1.3%). These examples are found in British, American, Irish, East Asian, and Indian English and crop up in edited writing such as news reports, as well as in unedited blogs and similar sources. Lexicographers will track these changes, and if they see a significant rise in the form passer-bys that indicates it’s becoming part of accepted usage, then it could gain inclusion as an alternative plural in the future. To sum up, the rules are a useful guide, but remember that language never stands still and most rules worth their salt have an exception, so keep a dictionary handy if you’re not sure. Happy pluralizing! *Test answers
A female judge hears the cases of an abused child, a battered wife and the rape of an adolescent.
Directed by Florence Ayisi, Kim Longinotto. With Vera Ngassa, Beatrice Ntuba. Set in Kumba in South West Cameroon Sisters in Law follows Adultery, Rape and ..
Sibling-in-law is a gender-neutral term to refer to a brother-in-law or sister-in-law. A brother-in-law (plural brothers-in-law) is the brother of one's spouse or the ..