Spacecraft
Published on Dec 2, 2008 at 9:56 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized, space exploration.
The plural of spacecraft is … spacecraft.
English is sometimes a strange language. Like all languages, English has rules for handing words. Unlike most languages, though, English has a lot of words that don’t fit the normal rules. Remember the spelling rule “i” befor “e”? Except that does not hold for words like “neighbor” or “weird.” For those words, the “e” comes before the “i.” There are also rules for making words plural. Normally, you put an “s” on the end. But, sometimes, that is not the case. For example, the plural of mouse is mice. The plural of goose is geese. But, there are a few words that just defy even those exceptions. Some words have no separate plural form. The plural is determined by context. The plural of moose is moose (two moose, not two meese!). The plural of fish is fish (I caught four fish). The word fishes refers to multiple types of fish, not to multiple fish. Likewise, deer is its own plural.
One other word that is its own plural is the nautical term “craft.” You speak of several watercraft, not watercrafts. So, when we started to send vessels into space, the term spacecraft was coined. Like watercraft, it is its own plural. NASA has sent many spacecraft to the planet Mars, not spacecrafts.
You can look this up in the dictionary. Unfortunately, I regularly see the incorrect “spacecrafts” used to refer to multiple spacecraft. In fact, this usage seems to be becoming more common, even among people who should know better. I even have found a few dictionaries that list the correct plural as spacecraft, with a notation that spacecrafts is commonly used. That seems a cop out to me. Online, I found a couple of less reputable sites that even had the wrong plural! And, I have regulary read the wrong plural form in the newspaper, and I’ve heard it used incorrectly on the air on the television news.
However, I am on a campaign to get the word used correctly. I always mention the proper use of the word in my introductory astronomy classes, and I insist that my students use the word correctly. After all, words are important. They convey ideas to others. So, we all need to use language correctly if we can. So, if you are reading this, remember: the plural form of spacecraft is spacecraft.
-Astroprof
Image courtesy NASA
Sili on December 3, 2008 at 2:57 pm: 1
And what exactly is conveyed by “spacecraft” that can’t be understood from “spacecrafts”?
Languages evolves. If you don’t like it, then you can’t say that the plural of “moose” is “moose”. It’ll have to be “moosek”.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=559#comment-8696
Astroprof on December 3, 2008 at 5:48 pm: 2
Yes, I know that languages evolve, but they should progress forward, not evolve through laziness or illiteracy. People not knowing better and using the wrong word or using a word the wrong way will eventually convey meaning to that word or that usage until it is accepted. But, that is a step backward, not forward. That is what teaching reading, writing, and vocabulary in school is supposed to prevent.
CCPhysicist on December 3, 2008 at 7:46 pm: 3
Nitpick: that is a hybrid vehicle. The only REAL “spacecraft” was the one that picture was taken from, since the LEM could only operate in space.
PS - nice conjunction photos.
Sili on December 4, 2008 at 12:00 pm: 4
I’m sorry, but that’s not how it works. You can’t decide from on high what the plural of spacecraft is supposed to be, anymore than you can dictate that people mustn’t use “which” as a restrictive relativiser.
I find it amusing that an empirical scientist objects to an empirical fact of standard language use.
Most of us pick up our uses from rolemodels as well as peers. And more importantly we deduce most of the rules of usage on our own. We have to be taught the exceptions. People pluralise “craft” “crafts”, because that’s the logical way to do it. It follows the Rule.
bob smith on December 8, 2008 at 7:20 am: 5
Language exceptions, unfortunate as they are, take precedence over the rules. You (Sili) shouldn’t argue that “language evolves, so spacecrafts is correct”, you should argue against the main point, that spacecraft is derived from watercraft, etc. But in this way, spacecraft as plural follows perfectly, so, you have no argument. One might argue that your strange use of “people” instead of “persons” violates your own insistence on “rule over exception”.
tony873004 on December 9, 2008 at 2:03 pm: 6
This is an interesting subject. I’ve been told that unlike French, there is no authoritative body that governs the English language. So common usage defines the language. Dictionaries such as Webster’s add new words every year. For example ‘ringtone’ and ’spyware’ were recently added. Presumably, Webster had no authority to add new words. They were just trying to catalog the common usage of the language which is constantly evolving.
Once upon a time, someone in America decided that ‘colour’ would be spelled ‘color’ and ‘centre’ would be ‘center’. I’ve always been curious as to how these changes were made. Did Americans just misspell ‘colour’ often enough that Webster’s decided to list the misspelling as correct usage? Microsoft Word’s spellchecker underlines “colour”, so not only is the new spelling considered correct, but the original spelling is now considered wrong.
How about words like “gonna” ? Webster’s defines it as informal English for “going to”. I’m gonna go to the movie. This is widely used. Why doesn’t its common usage justify removing the ‘informal’ label? Perhaps it’s because you often hear ‘gonna’ in spoken English, but you almost never see it in printed English.
Microsoft Word spellchecker doesn’t have a problem with “spacecrafts”. It lets me add words to the dictionary, but I wonder if I can delete one. I’m likely to not remember the rule and use “spacecrafts” in the things I type.