My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

Plural
Singular
bacteria
bacterium
dice
die
formulae
formula
graffiti
graffito

---

candelabra candelabrum
data
datum
media
medium
opera
opus
paparazzi paparazzo
One plural that has lost the fight is pease , which used to be the regular plural of
pea  .  Now  peas  is  found  pretty  much  everywhere  except  in  the  phrase  pease
pudding and the nursery rhyme about whether it is hot or cold.
Smart Alec: If you add an s to the plural words adventures , bras , cares ,
cosines , deadlines , millionaires , ogres , princes and timelines they revert to a
singular form: adventuress , brass , caress , cosiness , deadliness , millionairess ,
ogress , princess and timeliness .
By the way, genie and genius have the same plural: genii .
T
HOU AND THEE
(
OR
, P
RONOUNS
)
Going back to our poem (
HERE
), ‘In place of noun the pronoun stands’.  So  a
pronoun is used to avoid repeating a noun over and over again. Imagine if you
were writing a summary of this book and had to say, Many people find grammar
difficult.  Lots  of  people  were  never  taught  grammar  at  school.  Grammar  has
therefore become a source of anxiety. Indeed, some people might call grammar a
minefield. Just because nobody had thought to invent the words it or them.
The noun to which a pronoun refers is sometimes called the antecedent . So in
Many people find grammar difficult. Lots of them were never taught it at school ,
people is the antecedent of them and grammar is the antecedent of it .
‘The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim.’