"Fish" vs. "Fishes" (with a reference to beer!)

[jackdaniel]

Is it "fish" or "fishes"? Things like that have always bugged me.

From what I can tell, "fish" is correct for both singular and plural when speaking of a single species (similar to "beer" or "sheep"), but "fishes" is more correct in regards to different species.

Anyone?

 

[Aqua_man]

fishes is a slang word example: "sleep with the fishes"
correct plural and singular is fish

 

[jcardona1]

yeah i always use the word fish. fishes is just weird. kinda like the people that say worser

 

[fishbattery]

ya "fish" is the definite plural form.

 

[Druu]

All of you FAIL! (Except for OP)

True scientific usage is as follows. Fish is singular. Fish is also used to mean the plural of one species. (ex. you have a tank of 5 convicts- "look at my fish.")

Fishes is used for the plural when there are multiple species. (ex. you have a senegalus bichir with a delhezi bichir and a pair of pictus cats- "there are four fishes in that tank.")

So aqua_man and fishbattery are wrong. I'm not going to comment on jcardona b/c he's got a lot of guns.

 

[jcardona1]

All of you FAIL! (Except for OP)

True scientific usage is as follows. Fish is singular. Fish is also used to mean the plural of one species. (ex. you have a tank of 5 convicts- "look at my fish.")

Fishes is used for the plural when there are multiple species. (ex. you have a senegalus bichir with a delhezi bichir and a pair of pictus cats- "there are four fishes in that tank.")

So aqua_man and fishbattery are wrong. I'm not going to comment on jcardona b/c he's got a lot of guns.

i kinda figured that but i wasnt sure. i still dont like the word fishes though

 

[Onion01]

All of you FAIL! (Except for OP)

True scientific usage is as follows. Fish is singular. Fish is also used to mean the plural of one species. (ex. you have a tank of 5 convicts- "look at my fish.")

Fishes is used for the plural when there are multiple species. (ex. you have a senegalus bichir with a delhezi bichir and a pair of pictus cats- "there are four fishes in that tank.")

So aqua_man and fishbattery are wrong. I'm not going to comment on jcardona b/c he's got a lot of guns.

aaah, beat me to it. Same goes for octopuses and octopi

 

[rmorse]

aaah, beat me to it. Same goes for octopuses and octopi

And Octopodes....

 

[rmorse]

Actually, I think the correct terminology is Octopusus or Octopodes, and Octopi is incorrect..

 

[rmorse]

" Although it is often supposed that octopi is the 'correct' plural of octopus, and it has been in use for longer than the usual Anglicized plural octopuses, it in fact originates as an error. Octopus is not a simple Latin word of the second declension, but a Latinized form of the Greek word oktopous, and its 'correct' plural would logically be octopodes."