Why is the plural of man 'men', woman 'women', but the plural of human is not 'humen'?
375239
Because "man" and "woman" are originally of German origin, where plurals are often made by changing the ending to -en. English is a Germanic language, so we still retain some German rules for our spelling, especially of plurals (child > children) "Human," as the other writer indicated, is from Latin, so it follows the "regular" English rule for plurals, which is "add -s".
556209
English does not clearly distinguish gender on people; in fact there is some movement to eliminate it (letter carrier instead of postman, server instead of waiter, waitress).  Therefore 'friend' can mean a male or female friend.  (Lucy is my friend.  George is my friend.)  You can use 'girlfriends' as a woman to refer to a group of your female friends, not lovers: Lucy and her girlfriends went out to lunch and had too many Marguaritas.  I have heard people say 'guy friends' to refer to male friends who were not boyriends, but that is spoken language only.  So:\namigo/ami etc.   friend\namiga/amie  etc.   friend\nboyfriend (male with whom you are romantically involved)\ngirlfriend (female with who you are romantically involved)\n\nLearners of langauges where there are gender distinctions have a lot of trouble NOT interpreting amigo/amiga as the English boyfriend/girlfriend, so it goes both ways!
346781
Neither (yet, oddly, both).\n\nIn response to the argument that the Bible refers to God as "Him" and therefore God is Male -- In the French language, words describing objects are preceded by "le" or "la" which gives them value as being masculine or feminine terms -- that doesn't mean the objects are female or male.  In most languages, ships and nations (just two examples) are referred to as "She" and "her" -- that doesn't mean they are female.  In the past, in the US, to simplify statements, if the gender was not known or could be either, "he" was used.  (Example:  "To return an item, he must have his receipt.")  Our (US) Constitution uses the term "he", but in no way is meant to imply that it only refers to men.  And, man, as a species, includes women.\n\nGod (as great as He is) and the Lord (as great as He is) would not be so petty (I believe) as to bicker about the terms, He or She, to describe Them.  If the Lord was both male and female through the ages, the use of "He" to describe His position simplifies writing.  People (I believe) are equal in His eyes regardless of gender.  \n\nBesides, in Scriptures, in naming woman, we really don't know that "woman" doesn't mean "equal to the first one, but different-looking". \n\nPeace.
110409
'Software', like other nouns such as 'water' is a continuous, rather than discrete, noun. It therefore doesn't take a plural.
54917
There is no reason, it is just an idiosyncrasy of the language.  If memory serves, this is called a plural tantum (sp?), a strange type of noun which is always addressed in the plural, yet has no singular. Scissors, shorts and clothes are other examples of this bizzare phenomeneon.   Regards :)
704427
yes it is. there are some adjectives that end with -ης and describe both a male and a female.
727917
Une personne just means a person, either male or female. You could always just say un homme instead if you want to be more specific.
176453
Personal pronouns also have gender.\n\nFor instance, "he" is singular in number, third person, and masculine in gender.  ("She" is feminine, and "it" is neuter.)
755257
her = singular\nhim = singular\nhers = belonging to her\nhis = belonging to him\ntheirs = belonging to them (unisex)
304516
There ARE a lot of people - people is plural, so you use the plural form 'are.'
803543
"I kiss tenderly" with "you" implied. A lot of times in Russian you can leave the personal pronouns out, unlike English.
490850
I think it is very interesting to look at an old thesaurus in English, and compare synonyms for the word "man" with synonyms for "woman". \n\nMan= Synonyms bloke [chiefly British], buck, cat [slang], chap [chiefly British], dude, fellow, gent, gentleman, guy, hombre, jack, joker, lad, male\nRelated Words master, mister, sir\n\nWoman=(in old references) jade, harlot, damsel, dame, mistress, hussy, doll, tramp, s1ut, missus, lady, gentler sex, weaker sex, b1tch, female, hysterical\n\nI think that looking at the context of the culture's language tells you a lot about it, too!\n\nAlso, take words that in Hindu have no direct correlation to English concepts, let alone words. Concepts such as "ananda", "karma", "chit", "chakra", "shakti", etc. These are concepts that allow for life to be circular, rather than linear, in nature.
98856
I think it's time for people to accept that there's no point in making data plural when we never use the singular.  Technically stamina is plural too (like opera and agenda which you mention) but no one says "the stamina are" or "the opera are".  We're not ancient romans.  \n\n"there has been a growing tendency to use it as an equivalent to the uncountable noun information, followed by a singular verb. This is now regarded as generally acceptable in American use, and in the context of information technology."\nhttp://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/data?view=uk\n\n\n\nOnly pretentious pedants still use it as plural\nhttp://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pedant
320868
the first is plural, the second singular.
838713
Ok, here's the breakdown... use\nce when it's masculine singular unless the next word begins with a vowel (to avoid putting two vowels in a row and making odd sounds the french use) cet\ncette is for all fem. singular (even if the next word begins with a vowel) \nand ces is for all plural whether masc. or fem.
323993
The correct answer IS no one.  However, I understand where your confusion comes from.  In Genesis 1 we read an overview of the entire creation.  In verse 27 we see that God created man and woman, but are not given any names.  However, this doesn’t mean that they are not Adam and Eve.  The end of chapter 1 concludes the brief account, or summary if you will, of creation, and chapter 2 then elaborates on some important details.  These include how God created man and woman and their names.  Chapter 2 verse 7 describes the creation of Adam, but we know that it is an elaboration on the creation of man given in 1:27, because in 2:5 it specifically says that there was no man on the earth.  \n\nHope that clears it up a little.\n\n_______________  EDIT _______________\n\nTo James,\n\nI'm afraid you are mistaken about the meaning of the word "man" as it applies to Genesis 1 and 2.  I encourage you to look at the original Hebrew words as it makes it clearer that both chapters refer to the same "man".  It is understandable that some confusion is introduced when translating into English, so it is helpful to look at the original words to determine their meaning both individually and in the context of the surrounding scripture.  For example, the word for "man" is the exact same Hebrew word in both chapter 1 and 2, AND it is essentially the same word as the man's name! ADAM!  And it is a form that is used much more often as a singular form, while a different word (Alef + Yod + Shin) is used more often to indicate MEN - plural.  The word in Genesis 1 & 2 in Hebrew is Alef + Dalet + Mem.  \n\nCheck it our more for yourself -- you'll be surprised how consistent it is with the rest of the Bible's idea that Adam WAS the first man!
28010
11.1. Quick Start\nConcord is agreement in gender, case, number or person between different words that share a reference. For example, if a sentence contains a proper noun "Paul" and somewhat later a pronoun "he," and they refer to the same person, we say that they agree in number (for both are singular) and gender (for both are masculine).\n\nAs speakers or writers of a language we experience concord as a set of rules to learn and follow (and sometimes complain about). As listeners or readers we recognize that concord helps us decode sentences. In this passage\n\nElizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two dances; and during part of that time, Mr Darcy had been standing near enough for her to overhear a conversation between him and Mr Bingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes, to press his friend to join it. \ntwo grammatical rules help us to determine the reference of the pronouns "her," "him" and "his." The first of these is that a pronoun must agree with its antecedent in gender and number; this rule associates "her" with Elizabeth Bennet (rather than Darcy, who would otherwise be a possible antecedent) and prevents our associating "him" or "his" with Elizabeth Bennet. The second is that a pronoun must be associated with the most recent possible antecedent; by this rule we understand "his friend" to mean "Bingley's friend" rather than "Darcy's friend."\n\nWe work out the reference of the pronouns in a passage like the one above without conscious effort. Indeed the Modern English rules of concord are few and relatively simple:\n\nThe subject must agree with its verb in person and number. For most Modern English verbs this simply means that we must remember that a third-person singular subject generally takes a special verb form ending in -s. The verb to be, however, distinguishes all three persons in the present singular (I am, you are, she is) and the second person in the past singular (I was, you were, he was). \nThe pronoun must agree with its antecedent in gender and number. If you speak of a woman named Ruth in one clause and then in the next clause want to refer to her with a pronoun, the pronoun must be both feminine and singular. \nThe pronouns that and this, when used adjectivally, must agree in number with the nouns they modify: that wolf, those wolves; this horse, these horses. These pronominal adjectives are not inflected for gender. \nThe first two Modern English rules of concord are largely the same as in Old English. The third Modern English rule is a remnant of an Old English rule that a noun and all its modifiers (adjectives and pronouns used adjectivally) must agree in gender, case and number. All three of these rules are a little more complex in Old English than in Modern English, so you will have to pay careful attention to the rules of concord--at first, anyway.\n\n11.2. Subject and verb\nThe Old English verb must agree with its subject in person and number. The Old English finite verb always distinguished number and often distinguished person, and this relatively great degree of expressiveness can help you locate hard-to-find subjects, as here:\n\nÞæt wæs yldum cūþ,\nþæt hīe ne mōste,   þā Metod nolde,\nse scynscaþa   under sceadu breġdan. [Beowulf, ll. 705-7.] \n[It was known to men\nthat the demonic foe could not, if God did not wish it,\ndrag them under the shadows.]\nIn the noun clause that begins in the second line of this passage, the nominative/accusative third-person plural pronoun hīe comes before the verb mōste 'could', where Modern English grammar leads us to expect the subject. But the verb is plainly singular, so plural hīe cannot be the subject. Looking further, we find the nominative singular noun phrase se scynscaþa 'the demonic foe'; this is the subject.\n\nA verb's personal ending is