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Written by Arcans on 2024-12-14 at 10:46

Random english grammar question: what is the plural form of “manchild”? 🤔

Menchild?

Manchildren?

Menchildren?

Something else?

Is there any rules about the plural of compound words formed with words with irregular plural form?

[#]English #Language #Grammar

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Descendants

Written by David Megginson on 2024-12-14 at 12:14

@arcans You pluralise the second element of a compound noun (with or without a written space between the elements), so

bookshelf –> bookshelves

lion tamer -> lion tamers

manchild -> manchildren

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Written by Arcans on 2024-12-14 at 13:23

@david_megginson Thank you!

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Written by Sini Tuulia on 2024-12-14 at 12:16

@arcans Purely based on vibes and Finnish grammar I'd say manchildren, we only ever do the plural on the latter or last part of any compound word and hoo do we love compound words in Finnish.

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Written by Arcans on 2024-12-14 at 13:23

@sinituulia I am a French-speaker, and in French the rules for the plural of compound words vary depending on if the elements are noun, adjective, verb,…, on the relation between the two in the compound word, and also on the words being actually fused (simplest case, it is one word based on the plural rules of the later element, so similar to what you say about Finnish) or simply tied together by a - (that's where things are tricky, I am pretty good at French grammar, and I couldn’t actually tell you how it works).

And yeah, long compounded words are the main thing I know about Finnish grammar. Very interesting language, but I was pretty happy I could use English basically everywhere when I was at Rovaniemi earlier this year. Not a chance I could have learn enough Finnish to get around.

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Written by Sini Tuulia on 2024-12-14 at 13:42

@arcans I have a French friend who's currently learning Finnish with me, and most of the time when I correct him about some very small weird thing, I have no explanations to offer for why a word behaves the way it does. 😄 A lot of the time it's just because it's been used that way for a while, or because it feels better in the mouth! And there's of course archaic forms of all words to consider... It's not an easy language, no.

I can very vaguely read some French based on my almost forgotten Latin, but usually I don't know how to pronounce it!

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Written by Elisheva Meira ✡︎ 🌈 on 2024-12-14 at 12:34

@arcans There are rules (in general pluralise the noun not the modifier) but I'd argue that "manchild" as it is currently most often used (to mean a particular type of immature-behaving man) is its own word even if it is comprised of two other words, so the best plural is manchildren.

Merriam Webster sees it differently however 🙂

I think there's room for manchild = male child and manchild = man acting/thinking like a child to have distinct pluralisations.

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Written by Arcans on 2024-12-14 at 13:24

@emmaaum Thank you!

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Written by Elisheva Meira ✡︎ 🌈 on 2024-12-14 at 13:31

@arcans You're welcome. This was fun to think about :)

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Written by William Pietri on 2024-12-14 at 13:01

@arcans I think manchildren is the correct one at a language level, but as far as meaning and impact go I think it sounds too dignified, so I'd go with manbabies.

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