Plural form=>different meanings

Sorry, Ahava: nothing much comes to mind. Many don't change significantly; for instance, I don't see any real change between 'force' and 'forces'. But I will bump this thread back up for you: .

Quarter - quarters?

Some pairs I came across with are:

[cloth - clothes]
(1) Please buy two yards of cloth at the store.
(2) Take off your clothes.
[custom - customs]
(1) It's a Japanese custom to celebrate girls on March 3.
(2) You have to pay customs at the airport.
[glass - glasses]
(1) Every morning I drink two glasses of milk.
(2) Look a

See what I mean, Mr. M? Never trust a native informant! The non-natives have been through this from such a different point of view that they know some of the pitfalls - and clever examples - even better than we! Good examples, Paco!

I'm still not sure it is a valid pursuit, Jim.


- The plural of 'cloth' is now 'cloths', not 'clothes', which has no singular form. The etymological history of cloth, cloths, clothes (in extreme brevity) is O.E. claðas "clothes," originally pl. of clað "cloth," which acquired a new pl., "cloths", 19c. to distinguish it from this word.'

- 'Good' is singular for 'go

Mr M

I agree that 'cloth' and 'clothes' are now regarded as different words, though 'clothes' was once (before 19 century) regarded as the plural of 'cloth'.

I think the way to catch the sense(s) of an English word may differ from person to person. As I am a native Japanese learning English as the second language, I'm learning the senses of English words in the way I'm learni

Brain. Brains

Thomas Jefferson was top notch in the
brains department.

- So You Want To Be President ( a children's book)

AnonymousBrain. Brains Thomas Jefferson was top notch in the brains department. - So You Want To Be President ( a children's book)

While the singular refers to the human organ, the plural refers more to 'intelligence'.

It is a valid pursuit. The grammatical term for these plurals is Pluralia Tantum.
arm - arms
ash - ashes
bowel - bowels
communication - communications
content - contents
credential - credentials
custom - customs
fund - funds
gut - guts
heaven - heavens
humanity - humanities
letter - letters
minute - minutes
pain - pains
premise - premises

hi everyone
i would like to add a word ' mass and plural masses

I stopped reading the comments after a while because they stopped making sense to the original question - most of which I thought were wrong.

I can only really think of one:

New and News

These are two different meanings.

[KP]