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Is there any point in this massive category?
The only non-redundant entries are:
In my opinion, the page as it is now (including dozens of compounds with "man") does not display any sensible category. There are a few nouns like ox, which still take an -en ending (a regular plural ending of the weak declension in Old English) instead of the expected -(e)s (generalized from the nominative plural of strong declension masculine nouns in Old English, and gaining ground since at least the 13th century). Words like man and woman are properly classified together with mouse, as they show a vowel change in the stem to signal plural; they have never taken an -en ending. Svenonius (talk) 12:25, 29 November 2012 (UTC)Reply
It seems useful for at least the examples listed above. Perhaps trimming down its list of entries would be more useful than eliminating it? WilliamKF (talk) 19:59, 28 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Words either belong in this category or they do not. If some -man to -men words belong, then all do. If no -man to -men words belong here, then we need a category to properly accommodate the set of words having this unusual pluralization. bd2412T00:50, 29 May 2013 (UTC)Reply
Split into separate categories for different derivations
From a research standpoint, it is unhelpful to have hundreds of vowel replacement words swamping the (comparatively few) others that use an actual "-en" suffix. The ending "-men" is not a plural suffix, it's a vowel replacement (arguably within a suffix that denotes personhood).
I think there should be two categories, approximately English plurals formed by the addition of an "-en" suffix, and English plurals formed by changing "-man" to "-men" or perhaps English plurals formed by vowel replacement (which would include "mice" and "geese" as well as "men"). They would certainly be more useful for research than the current unrelated derivations.
Latest comment: 11 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
Doesn't conform to our category system and seems to collect a wide variety of terms which don't have anything in common other than ending in -en. Totally pointless category. -- Liliana•15:46, 22 April 2013 (UTC)Reply
At least it would be nice to move all those words that are word + men compounds (or word + women compounds) into a subcategory, so the rest stands out.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:13, 23 April 2013 (UTC)Reply
The pluralization of "man" (and "woman") to "men" (and "women") establishes a pattern replicated in hundreds of terms. Even if there is a category of plurals also including geese and mice, all those "-en" plurals would overwhelm it unless they were in a subcategory of their own therein. bd2412T03:41, 23 April 2013 (UTC)Reply
I would support this, but I note that there is some historical dispute about what makes a plural "irregular". For example, it is generally agreed that adding an "s" to a noun is the prime example of a regular plural, and it is generally agreed that added "es" after a final "s" or "x" or "ch" (bosses, boxes, crutches) is also a way of forming regular plurals. Some consider "f"/"fe" to "ves" endings (wolf to wolves, wife to wives) to be regular plurals as well, though I consider that a stretch. bd2412T19:49, 24 April 2021 (UTC)Reply
Sounds like that needs to be decided first, then. If there is consensus that it is regular in English for plurals to be created by adding -a, -en and -oi (?!), then the corresponding subcategories should not have "Category:English irregular plurals" as a parent. — SGconlaw (talk) 19:53, 24 April 2021 (UTC)Reply