Adding s/es to Nouns

 Adding s/es to Nouns

Nouns with the following endings take -es to make their plurals. Rest all the Nouns in English take -s except for Nouns ending in -y which take -ies. However, there are Nouns that have their own rules. They are only a handful and can easily be found in any good grammar book such as 'Wren & Martin'.

Endings                        Noun                     Noun in plural form

-sh     bush                    bushes

-ch     clutch                    clutches

-ss     toss                       tosses

-z     quiz                      quizzes

-x                                  tax                         taxes

-o                                  buffalo                   buffaloes

-y                                  housefly           houseflies

                                     Ray                      Rays (only -s is added if -y is preceded by a vowel)

Note: 

In all the above cases, -es is pronounced as 'iz'

except for -o and -y endings where -es and -ies both are pronounced as 'z'

To know the right pronunciation please listen to the right pronunciation in a good dictionary such as dictionary.cambridge.org or listen to your teacher's pronunciation carefully.

Read More: 

s/es rule - one rule two functions 

Before learning which verbs take 's' and which take 'es',  please go through s/es rule to understand what it actually is. Go to the following link:

https://sangeetgaur.blogspot.com/2022/09/ses-rule-one-rule-two-functions.html

Adding s/es to verbs

https://sangeetgaur.blogspot.com/2022/09/adding-ses-to-verbs.html

keywords: s/es rule, rules for making singular/plural nouns in English, adding s/es in nouns