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Box My Ears
Find a common English noun for which the plural and singular forms are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently.
Hint
The first word of the title is the Latin root of the word.Answer
A solution is ChassisThe singular form is pronounced CHASSee, and the plural is CHASSeze.
It is the frame, or box, of an automobile body.
Are there other such English nouns?
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Comments
Good one, Snowdog.
You stumped me with this teaser. After thinking for quite some time, I finally came up with an alternative solution: How about the word "chamois"? The singular is pronounced [sham-ee], and the plural can have the same spelling, and is pronounced [sham-eez].
You stumped me with this teaser. After thinking for quite some time, I finally came up with an alternative solution: How about the word "chamois"? The singular is pronounced [sham-ee], and the plural can have the same spelling, and is pronounced [sham-eez].
Another alternative solution, although a less common word, is the word "Chablis". The singular can be pronounced [sha-blee], and the plural has the same spelling, and can be pronounced [sha-bleez] (but not [sha-blee]).
Nice! Two excellent solutions I had not considered. After submitting the teaser and pondering it further I found "corps". There are more solutions than I had initially expected! It may make this an imperfect teaser, but it has been a very fun thought exercise for me.
It's a good teaser. Why do all the answer words start with "c" (or "C")?
Actually, not all of the answer words start with "c"/"C". For the word "faux pas", the singular is pronounced [foh pah] and the plural is pronounced [foh pahz]. For many of the words, however, there seems to be a "French Connection" i.e. their word origin. This teaser is very interesting. It was fun to think of valid solutions. Thanks for submitting it!
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