I´ve made a big bunch of Fish themed ATCs tonight, some of them a bit weird, but that´s the way my mind works. If English is your mother tongue, maybe you can help me with a question that came up for me: At school, I´ve learned that there´s no plural form of fish, so you say "one fish, two fish". Well, we´ve been taught British English of course, so when I got older surfing a lot of U. S. websites, I´ve been surprised to see "fishes" so many times. Can you tell me if that´s just American English or if British people also use that plural form nowadays? I know that there are other British specialties that will vanish soon, but I´m not sure about this one.
23 hours ago
7 comments:
LOVE these ATCs! I really like your style.
and yes, it's one fish two fish - not one fish two fishes :) so those Americans are just plain wrong :P :)
Love this set Marion!
What a great blog! Hope to see much more of your atc's and other arts,
Henny
gorgeous atcs!
I was curious about this one>>I always use just plain "fish" but here is another opinion...from Wikepedia. Words are great!
And the word "fish" itself is also troublesome, being generally used as a plural when in the context of food, but forming a regular plural otherwise (thus "three lots of fish and chips", "the industry landed 5,200 tonnes of fish in 1998" but "the order of fishes", "the miracle of the loaves and fishes", the phrase "sleep with the fishes"). The usage does vary, however, so that for example the phrase "five fish in an aquarium" might to another native user be "five fishes in an aquarium". Using the plural form fish could imply many individual fish(es) of the same species while fishes could imply many individual fish(es) of differing species.
Thanks for your efforts, Hester!
Fish is like deer...no plural form.
It is often used with literary license for effect. Like "....he sleeps with the fishes" in the "Godfather" movie.
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