why do you call a foot a foot but two foots feet. but you call two ears, ears. you call two arms arms???

Answer 1

The group of "irregular plurals" like "feet" is actually a bit more regular than at first appears. They just reflect an older form of our language.

MOST nouns in English now follow the standard MODERN English way of forming plurals -- adding "-(e)s". But there are remnants of the OLD English endings, including the plural -en (as in "oxen" and "children"). The changed vowel in certain plural forms is also a remnant of Old English. Note that these "irregular plurals" are found in very COMMON words. (In fact, that is typical of human language. But less common words are better are 'following the rules' when they change.)

As for those odd plural forms marked by a changed vowel, note that they share something in common, the plural form always moves toward and e/i -vowel -- foot/feet, goose/geese, tooth/teeth, louse/lice, man/men, etc.

This changed vowel in Old English plural noun forms (and various other parts of the language) was actually NOT invented as a way to mark the plural. It was an indirect result.

Here's what happened:

1) In most of the ancient Germanic languages, adding a suffix with an i-vowel in it caused the vowel in the preceding syllable to change to be a bit more like the i-vowel ("vowel harmony" -- a comon, very natural change in human speech). This change is called "i-mutation" or "umlaut".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_umlaut

2) Old English had a whole system of case endings Some of these endings had i-vowels in them and caused the change in the preceding vowel noted in #1. (These changes took place in various forms, not just plurals.)

We can see the same sort of change in many other words that took various suffixes: hale/health, long/length, old/elder, eldest, food/feed.
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/research/rawl/IOE/pronunciation.html#pronounce:imutation

3) The system of case endings died out amidst the massive changes that gave us Middle English (for which you may blame the Norman French invaders if you like!) But the vowel changes in many of these old noun forms survived.. Without the endings, the changed vowel itself began to function as a marker of the plural form.

4) The "new" system of forming plurals by adding -(e)s was adopted for MOST English nouns. But many of the most common, familiar words were NOT changed. (This is typical of human language. Note how all our irregular VERBS are COMMON words - have, be, bring, come, go... Rarer words are easily forced into a consistent pattern.)

Answer 2

There's no logical reason, I suspect. It's just a matter of the way common usage developed over the centuries. If you look at it from a speech point of view, 'feet' does roll off the tongue better than 'foots' and this could be a powerful reason for this linguistic anomaly. Saying certain plurals in seemingly illogical ways does tend to make the language flow better. Some of Shakespeare's prose may not have sounded quite as sweet otherwise.

Best of luck ,------ Benvee

Answer 3

Quite a lot of English nouns have irregular plurals. The history is complicated because English comes from so many different languages.

Some plurals are formed by changing the vowel sound: man, men; foot, feet; mouse, mice. A few add -en, instead of -s to the word - ox, oxen.

Quite a good table of plurals for nouns is here:
http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/crump.htm#ListTwo

Answer 4

The wonders of the English language.

Answer 5

haven't a clue it's like 1 fish is called a fish but so are 2 or 3 called fish not fishes same as sheep. the mind boggles

Answer 6

LANGUAGE WAS DESIGNED TO CONFUSE......HOW ABOUT FOOT NUMBER ONE AND FOOT NUMBER TWO.....EAR ONE AND EAR TWO.....SEEMS LIKE IT WOULD WORK BETTER IN SOME SURGICAL MISHAPS.....MAYBE NOT....SOME STILL GET A LEG CHOPPED OFF WHEN ALL THEY WANTED WAS A VARICOSE VEIN REMOVED ....FROM THE ONE STILL ATTACHED.....LIKE I SAID .....LANGUAGE IS DESIGNED TO COMPETELY CONFUSE US AND TAKES ALONG TIME .....WASTED....TO CONFUSE....PHONICS HAS THE RIGHT THOUGHT......SOME IDIOT JUST ADDED MORE LETTERS SO THAT THEY WOULD APPEAR MORE INTELLIGENT ...AND WIN SPELLING CONTEST......

Answer 7

English is a weird language

Answer 8

You have 2 thumbs but say we have 10 fingers !!!

Answer 9

have you ever considered education as a passtime in between asking stupid questions?

Answer 10

its the plural language