Plural of fish, sheep, deer...

2012-09-03 1:14 pm PDT

Anyone know the reason why we don't use 's' at the end of fish, sheep, deer in English?
2012-09-03 1:27 pm PDT
I'm not sure about sheep or deer but actually the plural of fish is fishes. I used to be an editor and
got roped in to helping out in the pets area once upon a time. I kept wondering why these writers
were using the term fishes as it sounds so wrong. Looked it up on the Associated Press account I had
at the time and it was in fact correct.
The English language is both beautiful and confusing!
2012-09-03 1:33 pm PDT
Actually either fish or fishes is correct. "There are some fish in the tank" is as correct as "There are
some fishes in the tank" (actually to my ear they would be used in different contexts, fish being
uncountable and fishes being countable--"We had fish for dinner" vs. "Three little fishies in an ittybitty poo'"). In any case, all three words come from Old English, which had different rules for
pluralization, and in all probability were once distinguished through pronounciation, which has been
lost in the ensuing centuries (cf. mouse-mice, tooth-teeth, goose-geese, foot-feet, although how
house-hice was skipped over is a mystery to me).
2012-09-03 6:36 pm PDT
We can go catch some fish. If you cross the mob you will sleep with the fishes. Who knows why.
2012-09-03 10:32 pm PDT
aguy caught it correctly.
The plural of fish is usually fish, but fishes has a few uses. In biology, for instance,fishes is used to
refer to multiple species of fish. The word also serves as the plural possessive for fish-i.e., fishes'. And of course, fishes is the present-tense verb (e.g., she fishes in the river).
Fishes also appears in the cinematic gangster idiom sleeps with the fishes, used to indicate that
someone has been whacked.
http://grammarist.com/usage/fish-fishes/
Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_plural will make your head (an irregular plural) hurt.
2012-10-28 4:09 am PDT
Just my 2 cents ...I only use the word 'fish' as plural. The English language is so complicated at the
best of times. Aguy I think 'fish' sounds right to me however I use it. Jade you are a fountain of
information and I can see why 'fishes' is used to describe multiple species but it still sounds wrong to

me.
2012-10-28 4:48 am PDT
I agree, I always thought that it was 'fish' when talking about one type, and 'fishes' when talking
about multiple types.
2012-10-29 4:09 pm PDT
I always thought "s" was used to show ownership of a noun used in a sentence. So using it for the
words fish, sheep , deer would not look right unless used to show ownership . For example this is my
fish's bowel that i have to keep clean every week. Just thought i would share this view i think this is
right , but i'am not sure i have not read a grammer book since high shcool.