Gunmen Shows an Old English Plural Pattern
Gunmen is the plural of gunman. The vowel change is a survival of a very old way of forming plurals.
Gunmen is the plural of *gunman*, formed by changing the vowel rather than adding an S. This pattern is ancient: *man* and *men*, *foot* and *feet*, *goose* and *geese*, *mouse* and *mice*, *tooth* and *teeth*. It comes from a sound change called umlaut, in which a vowel in the ending pulled the vowel before it forward, and then the ending disappeared.
- More than one gunman. *Three gunmen fled.*
- Gunman — the singular. *A single gunman.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Singular | gunman | One gunman. |
| Plural | gunmen | Several gunmen. |
| Pattern | man / men | One man, two men. |
| Pattern | foot / feet | One foot, two feet. |
| Pattern | mouse / mice | One mouse, two mice. |
How it is used in a sentence
- Two gunmen were arrested.Plural.
- Mice and geese follow the same rule.Vowel change, no S.
- Computer mice, not mouses.Though both are heard.
Irregular English plurals
- Vowel change — man/men, foot/feet, tooth/teeth
- -en plurals — child/children, ox/oxen
- Unchanged — sheep, deer, fish, aircraft
- Latin and Greek — criterion/criteria, fungus/fungi
- Most nouns — simply add S, the pattern that won
The vowel change comes from i-mutation, a prehistoric sound change in Germanic in which a following front vowel altered the one before it.
Why do man and men differ by a vowel?
An ancient sound change called i-mutation altered the vowel before a plural ending, and then the ending itself was lost.
Are there many such plurals?
Only a handful survive: men, women, feet, teeth, geese, mice and lice. Everything else went over to adding S.