Why not meese

This is because the word that gave us "deer" belonged to a noun group in Old English which didn't add an -s for the plural. But even if the moose belonged to, say, the cat family, and thus typically had a plural different from its singular, we wouldn't use the plural "meese". This is because, unlike "goose", the word "moose" did not exist in early Anglo-Saxon times, so it couldn't undergo i-mutation. The Abenaki are a native people of Quebec, the Maritimes, and New England, for whom this majestic animal is a mos.

Over the years, there have been occasional instances of people using "mooses" for the plural, but this is so much a minority usage that it has to be considered incorrect. Just to add more complications to the story of "moose", the animal which it designates, called by zoologists Alces alces , is known as an "elk" in Europe.

In North America, " elk" is used instead for the wapiti a Cree word , Cervus elaphus canadensis. Elk North American meaning Are you confused now? I tell you, lexicographers hate these cervids! Here in Canada we have a lot of moose. I was quite entertained on my first trip to Newfoundland, where there are an estimated , of them one for every four Newfoundlanders , to find "Moose bourguignon" on a restaurant menu yes, of course I ordered it. Mooseburgers are another option. Follow me on twitter: thewordlady.

Labels: i-mutation , irregular plurals , moose vs elk , plural of deer , plural of moose. The perplexing silent letters in words like "tsunami" and "rendezvous" are carried over from Japanese and French, respectively. The varying origins of words also produce a lot of strange, irregular-seeming plurals.

That's why we have to look back through the history of English to figure out why the plural of "goose" is geese If you're not from Alaska, Canada, or the northeastern United States, you may not have had to give too much thought to the plural of "moose. Despite what a certain honking bird whose singular form rhymes with that of "moose" might suggest, the plural of "moose" is not "meese. Many other words in the English language are also loanwords, but " moose" is a relatively new addition, incorporated from several Native American languages in the early s.

For more fascinating animal names, check out these wacky but real names for groups of animals. So where did the word "goose" come from, and where did it get its unusual plural? Well, even though "goose" and "moose" sound the same, they're not related words.

In fact, they originate from different languages and different times in history. Words like " tooth ," "foot" , and, yes, "goose" date back up to a thousand years before "moose ," when Old English was the only form of English. Back then, pluralization was different; mutations , or sound changes to words, would denote whether or not certain words were plural or singular.

So we got "teeth" and "feet" and "geese. Learn about the most confusing grammar rules in all of English. There's the final perplexing question about the plural of "moose. As language evolved, words which used mutations for pluralization were replaced by the more standard modern plural ending - s or held onto the pluralizations from their original languages " fungus" retained its Latin pluralization of " fungi ".

Now that you know why the plural of "moose" isn't "meese," check out these other irregular English plurals that you won't believe are correct. These cookies do not store any personal information. But why then do we say geese instead of gooses? Recent Posts Do big words make you sound smarter? Ditch the waffle! How to write your out-of-office response Do you use unnecessary words when writing?

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