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In my
view there's no reason for birders to invent some sort of special or "s-less"
plurals for birds. The English language provides adequate rules for expressing
singular and plural forms of names and nouns, with just a few weird exceptions
like aphid, dice, etc.
For
birds, I put the "s" on. Sounds ridiculous and incorrect to me to say
anything other than "two crows" or "five albatrosses" or ' ten ibises" or " four
magpies". However, I expect some pseudo academic pedant will come up with
some "scientific rationale" for saying two crow or four magpie. As if things
aren't complex enough already.
Ho
hum.
Tony
There is a discussion of collective nouns for
birds going on. Perhaps there could be a discussion of how plurals of birds
are formed. That is, when you are talking about more than one bird when do you
add the " s " and when do you leave it off. (Two grasswren or two
grasswrens).
Unlike most areas of human activity there just
seems to be no consensus amongst birdwatchers about this. Is there an
authority? Dictionaries don't seem to be much help.
Reg
Oakley
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