full transcript

From the Ted Talk by John McWhorter: A brief history of plural word...s

Unscramble the Blue Letters


There are a lot of ways this marvelous language of ours, English, doesn't make sesne. For example, most of the time when we talk about more than one of something, we put an S on the end. One cat, two cats. But then, there's that handful of wdros where things work differently. Alone you have a man; if he has company, then you've got men, or probably better for him, women too. Although if there were only one of them, it would be a wmoan. Or if there's more than one gsooe, they're geese, but why not lots of mooses, meese? Or if you have two feet, then why don't you read two beek instead of bkoos. The fact is that if you were speaking English before about a thousand yreas ago, beek is exactly what you would have said for more than one book. If Modern English is strange, Old English needed therapy. Believe it or not, English used to be an even harder language to learn than it is today. Twenty-five hundred years ago, English and German were the same language. They drifted apart slowly, little by little becoming more and more different. That meant that in early English, just like in German, inanimate ojbctes had gender. A fork, gafol, was a woman; a spoon, laefel, was a man; and the table they were on, bord, was neither, also called neuter. Go figure! Being able to use words meant not just knowing their meaning but what genedr they were, too. And while today there are only about a dzeon plurals that don't make sense, like men and geese, in Old English, it was perfectly normal for countless plurals to be like that. You think it's odd that more than one goose is gseee? Well, imagine if more than one goat was a bucnh of gat, or if more than one oak tree was a field of ack. To be able to talk about any of these, you just had to know the exact word for their plural rather than just adding the handy S on the end. And it wasn't always an S at the end either. In merry Old esnilgh, they could add other sounds to the end. Just like more than one child is children, more than one lamb was lambru, you fried up your eggru, and ppeloe tlaekd not about breads, but breadru. Sometimes it was like sheep is today - where, to make a pularl, you don't do anything. One sheep, two sheep. In Old English, one house, two house. And just like taody, we have oxen instead of oxes. Old English people had toungen instead of tnugeos, nmean instead of names, and if things steyad the way they were, today we would have eyen instead of eyes. So, why didn't things stay the way they were? In a word, Vikings. In the 8th century, Scandinavian marauders started taking over much of England. They didn't speak English, they spoke Norse. Plus, they were grown-ups, and grown-ups aren't as good at learning languages as crehdiln. After the age of rolhugy 15, it's almost impossible to learn a new language without an accent and without slipping up here and there as we all know from what luggaane csleass are like. The Vikings were no different, so they had a way of smoothing away the harder ptras of how English worked. Part of that was those crazy plurals. Imagine running up against a language with eggru and gat on the one hand, and then with other words, all you have to do is add 's' and get days and stones. Wouldn't it make things eaiser to just use the 's' for everything? That's how the Vikings felt too. And there were so many of them, and they married so many of the English wmeon, that pretty soon, if you grew up in England, you heard senrltmaied English as much as the real kind.

Open Cloze


There are a lot of ways this marvelous language of ours, English, doesn't make _____. For example, most of the time when we talk about more than one of something, we put an S on the end. One cat, two cats. But then, there's that handful of _____ where things work differently. Alone you have a man; if he has company, then you've got men, or probably better for him, women too. Although if there were only one of them, it would be a _____. Or if there's more than one _____, they're geese, but why not lots of mooses, meese? Or if you have two feet, then why don't you read two beek instead of _____. The fact is that if you were speaking English before about a thousand _____ ago, beek is exactly what you would have said for more than one book. If Modern English is strange, Old English needed therapy. Believe it or not, English used to be an even harder language to learn than it is today. Twenty-five hundred years ago, English and German were the same language. They drifted apart slowly, little by little becoming more and more different. That meant that in early English, just like in German, inanimate _______ had gender. A fork, gafol, was a woman; a spoon, laefel, was a man; and the table they were on, bord, was neither, also called neuter. Go figure! Being able to use words meant not just knowing their meaning but what ______ they were, too. And while today there are only about a _____ plurals that don't make sense, like men and geese, in Old English, it was perfectly normal for countless plurals to be like that. You think it's odd that more than one goose is _____? Well, imagine if more than one goat was a _____ of gat, or if more than one oak tree was a field of ack. To be able to talk about any of these, you just had to know the exact word for their plural rather than just adding the handy S on the end. And it wasn't always an S at the end either. In merry Old _______, they could add other sounds to the end. Just like more than one child is children, more than one lamb was lambru, you fried up your eggru, and ______ ______ not about breads, but breadru. Sometimes it was like sheep is today - where, to make a ______, you don't do anything. One sheep, two sheep. In Old English, one house, two house. And just like _____, we have oxen instead of oxes. Old English people had toungen instead of _______, _____ instead of names, and if things ______ the way they were, today we would have eyen instead of eyes. So, why didn't things stay the way they were? In a word, Vikings. In the 8th century, Scandinavian marauders started taking over much of England. They didn't speak English, they spoke Norse. Plus, they were grown-ups, and grown-ups aren't as good at learning languages as ________. After the age of _______ 15, it's almost impossible to learn a new language without an accent and without slipping up here and there as we all know from what ________ _______ are like. The Vikings were no different, so they had a way of smoothing away the harder _____ of how English worked. Part of that was those crazy plurals. Imagine running up against a language with eggru and gat on the one hand, and then with other words, all you have to do is add 's' and get days and stones. Wouldn't it make things ______ to just use the 's' for everything? That's how the Vikings felt too. And there were so many of them, and they married so many of the English _____, that pretty soon, if you grew up in England, you heard ___________ English as much as the real kind.

Solution


  1. woman
  2. people
  3. years
  4. language
  5. children
  6. english
  7. bunch
  8. women
  9. roughly
  10. sense
  11. geese
  12. objects
  13. talked
  14. goose
  15. words
  16. dozen
  17. classes
  18. today
  19. gender
  20. namen
  21. parts
  22. books
  23. easier
  24. tongues
  25. plural
  26. streamlined
  27. stayed

Original Text


There are a lot of ways this marvelous language of ours, English, doesn't make sense. For example, most of the time when we talk about more than one of something, we put an S on the end. One cat, two cats. But then, there's that handful of words where things work differently. Alone you have a man; if he has company, then you've got men, or probably better for him, women too. Although if there were only one of them, it would be a woman. Or if there's more than one goose, they're geese, but why not lots of mooses, meese? Or if you have two feet, then why don't you read two beek instead of books. The fact is that if you were speaking English before about a thousand years ago, beek is exactly what you would have said for more than one book. If Modern English is strange, Old English needed therapy. Believe it or not, English used to be an even harder language to learn than it is today. Twenty-five hundred years ago, English and German were the same language. They drifted apart slowly, little by little becoming more and more different. That meant that in early English, just like in German, inanimate objects had gender. A fork, gafol, was a woman; a spoon, laefel, was a man; and the table they were on, bord, was neither, also called neuter. Go figure! Being able to use words meant not just knowing their meaning but what gender they were, too. And while today there are only about a dozen plurals that don't make sense, like men and geese, in Old English, it was perfectly normal for countless plurals to be like that. You think it's odd that more than one goose is geese? Well, imagine if more than one goat was a bunch of gat, or if more than one oak tree was a field of ack. To be able to talk about any of these, you just had to know the exact word for their plural rather than just adding the handy S on the end. And it wasn't always an S at the end either. In merry Old English, they could add other sounds to the end. Just like more than one child is children, more than one lamb was lambru, you fried up your eggru, and people talked not about breads, but breadru. Sometimes it was like sheep is today - where, to make a plural, you don't do anything. One sheep, two sheep. In Old English, one house, two house. And just like today, we have oxen instead of oxes. Old English people had toungen instead of tongues, namen instead of names, and if things stayed the way they were, today we would have eyen instead of eyes. So, why didn't things stay the way they were? In a word, Vikings. In the 8th century, Scandinavian marauders started taking over much of England. They didn't speak English, they spoke Norse. Plus, they were grown-ups, and grown-ups aren't as good at learning languages as children. After the age of roughly 15, it's almost impossible to learn a new language without an accent and without slipping up here and there as we all know from what language classes are like. The Vikings were no different, so they had a way of smoothing away the harder parts of how English worked. Part of that was those crazy plurals. Imagine running up against a language with eggru and gat on the one hand, and then with other words, all you have to do is add 's' and get days and stones. Wouldn't it make things easier to just use the 's' for everything? That's how the Vikings felt too. And there were so many of them, and they married so many of the English women, that pretty soon, if you grew up in England, you heard streamlined English as much as the real kind.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
real kind 2


Important Words


  1. accent
  2. ack
  3. add
  4. adding
  5. age
  6. beek
  7. book
  8. books
  9. bord
  10. breadru
  11. breads
  12. bunch
  13. called
  14. cat
  15. cats
  16. century
  17. child
  18. children
  19. classes
  20. company
  21. countless
  22. crazy
  23. days
  24. differently
  25. dozen
  26. drifted
  27. early
  28. easier
  29. eggru
  30. england
  31. english
  32. exact
  33. eyen
  34. eyes
  35. fact
  36. feet
  37. felt
  38. field
  39. fork
  40. fried
  41. gafol
  42. gat
  43. geese
  44. gender
  45. german
  46. goat
  47. good
  48. goose
  49. grew
  50. hand
  51. handful
  52. handy
  53. harder
  54. heard
  55. house
  56. imagine
  57. impossible
  58. inanimate
  59. kind
  60. knowing
  61. laefel
  62. lamb
  63. lambru
  64. language
  65. languages
  66. learn
  67. learning
  68. lot
  69. lots
  70. marauders
  71. married
  72. marvelous
  73. meaning
  74. meant
  75. meese
  76. men
  77. merry
  78. modern
  79. mooses
  80. namen
  81. names
  82. needed
  83. neuter
  84. normal
  85. norse
  86. oak
  87. objects
  88. odd
  89. oxen
  90. oxes
  91. part
  92. parts
  93. people
  94. perfectly
  95. plural
  96. plurals
  97. pretty
  98. put
  99. read
  100. real
  101. roughly
  102. running
  103. scandinavian
  104. sense
  105. sheep
  106. slipping
  107. slowly
  108. smoothing
  109. sounds
  110. speak
  111. speaking
  112. spoke
  113. spoon
  114. started
  115. stay
  116. stayed
  117. stones
  118. strange
  119. streamlined
  120. table
  121. talk
  122. talked
  123. therapy
  124. thousand
  125. time
  126. today
  127. tongues
  128. toungen
  129. tree
  130. vikings
  131. ways
  132. woman
  133. women
  134. word
  135. words
  136. work
  137. worked
  138. years