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Why are there no “fishes” in English?

Because, etymologically, individuality among fish was not especially valued.

First, there are, indeed, “fishes” in English. The distinction - which most English-speakers aren’t familiar with - is that “fishes” refers specifically to multiple species of fish, whereas “fish” on its own just means “fish”, singular or plural, in general. One that people are familiar with is “cheeses” (several kinds) vs. “cheese” (generic plural). It also holds true for “fruit”, “bread”, “spice”, and several other foods.

There is a two-part rule for words with the same singular and plural forms:

  1. they are typically found in groups
  2. thinking of them in terms of individuals isn’t, or historically wasn’t, important

“Fish” is an obvious one:

  1. they typically appear in flocks
  2. since they live in herds, and are only directly important to humans as food, we never needed to think of them as individuals

Accordingly, their singular and plural forms are the same. This goes for foods (there’s another one!) as well: cheese, fruit, bread, and spice are typically in barrels, ears, bushels, piles, etc., so their individuality need not be regarded as too important.


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Lots of other animals fit in the same category: sheep are meat - and wool-bearing animals, so they’re thought of in terms of schools of sheep without regard to the singular sheep; shrimp, too, float along, are caught, and are consumed in gaggles. Accordingly, their singular and plural forms are the same.

Other examples include:

  • Elk, which migrate and are hunted in swarms; their individuality is unimportant enough that there is no such thing as “elks”.
  • Moose, distantly related to elk, fulfill a similar role in North America; hence, you have a kaleidoscope of moose, not of “meese”.
  • Swine, since supplanted by “pigs”, are like sheep: the pride of swine was more important than a swine by itself.
  • Salmon, as fish, are found and caught in flocks, so you hear people refer to “a murder of salmon”, not a murder of “salmons”.

(This last point applies to many fishes: halibut, cod, bass, trout, carp, pike, and perch are all the same in singular and plural.)


Эта информация была изначально размещена на Quora. Нажмите здесь, чтобы перейти к оригинальному посту.

Was this information interesting? What are your thoughts on the topic?

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Что вы думаете по этому поводу?
53 Comments
Conrado De Leon
When a mobster sent a guy to "sleep with the fishes" he didn't care WHAT fish they were. LOL
1
03.03.2025 07:21
Peter Sylvester-Smith
What a wonderful, tongue‐in‐ cheek answer! (And the reactions in the comments - oh my, I haven't had such an entertaining 10 minutes for a kindle of years!)
2
17.02.2024 05:13
jjborneo
Who on earth decided to misuse EVERY collective noun in this information. Totally ludicrous and totally FALSE. Extremely POOR, NON-EXISTING fact checking.
1
07.02.2024 06:05
Caroline Weis
I always heard that those of the cat family,especially lions were called a pride, not swine or hogs and elk, cows, horses and such like were in herds not swarms. Now bees, wasps and flies are called swarms while some birds, like chickens, geese, and sheep are flocks. Guess this old farm girl has something new to learn if this Isn't the truth.
2
14.08.2023 02:00
Vimala Padmaraj
IS THIS A COMIC ARTICLE TRANSLATED FROM SOME VERNACULAR LANGUAGE???? OR IS IT OUR FRIENDS AT QUIZ CLUB GIVING US LIGHT RELIEF FROM OUR DAILY 'STRESSFUL' LIFE????
0
25.07.2023 03:43
Susan Lake-Harris
Fish in flocks? Maybe flying fish... Good grief - this article is nonsense. Schools or shoals. yes. At least the distinction between the usage of "fish" and "fishes" was correct.
3
24.04.2023 01:27
bonniecardona
Uh I think fish are found in “schools” I have never in my life heard of a flock of any kind of fish. To me the word flock is used for many kinds of birds, except a murder of crows or a parliament of owls!!! Ps I once was told that the English language is one of the hardest to learn so I guess this accounts for some of the glaring errors I see on QC
4
25.10.2022 04:37
John Gwalter
Robert Mookerdum, they refer to "a school of sheep"!!!
0
13.10.2022 09:59
Peter Thomas
Flock and murder of salmon?!
1
06.08.2022 07:22
Robert Mookerdum
No mention at all of 'Sheep'.
1
19.05.2022 03:34
Wyla Reedy
Didn't know there were that many murders.
1
16.11.2020 04:54
beth nicol
Did your fact checkers check this before it was published? I rather doubt it.
3
10.09.2020 07:27
littledick
Still, the plural for goose is geese. So why not meese for moose. And the plurals of mouse and louse are mice and lice, why isn't the plural of house hice and grouse grice? I'm so glad English is my native language and I didn't have to learn it from scratch.
1
04.02.2020 04:44
Micki Horton
Very interesting and informative.
0
29.12.2019 12:09
Bob Pam Hanna
Can't say much except, I believe in the difference, "ifen" you know what I mean!!
0
06.08.2019 01:22

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