Friday puzzle -- unusual plurals

Re: Friday puzzle -- unusual plurals

Jim Rutten

Please forgive me as there is someone lurking over my shoulder. I or that is to say we have talked this over and don't think such things exist unless you are talking about old english hamburger stock.

Yes for Old English Hamburger Stock

Alex Y

Kudos to Jim.

"Kine" is a plural of "cow".

Jim, your answer may be too subtle for me. If you are claiming that this is the only such pair, the answer is no. If you are claiming to reveal other pairs, how many?

Hint 1

Alex Y

In trying to find A and B pairs, don't place limits that are not part of the original statement of the problem.

Re: Friday puzzle -- unusual plurals

Dan Donaldson

I/we, me/us, but Jim already said those.

Re: Friday puzzle -- unusual plurals

Alex Y

I saw the I/we pair in Jim's answer, but only half of the me/us pair. His answer included one other pair, and half of a fifth pair.

But you got what the hint was about -- almost everyone will read the question, subconsciously, as being about nouns instead of words.

Re: Friday puzzle -- unusual plurals

Larry Barrett

I would not have thought of pronouns without the earlier answers; but following up on this theme,

singular-he/she/it plural-they (this may not count since some letters are same)

singular possessive-my plural-our

Here is a related puzzle involving plurals, but this involves the more normal case of adding an "s" to create the plural. I know of one word (it is 8 letters, so not easy to guess) where adding an "s" not only creates the plural, as expected, but also creates an entirely new word.

Hint 2

Alex Y

So far, Jim, Dan, and Larry have given us

cow/kine

I/we

me/us and

my/our

There are two other pairs, which appear in posts from Jim and me. Ours will both lead you to one of the answers, but there is only one post (mine) that contains both pairs.

Larry's plural

Alex Y

I'm drawing a blank on this one. Is the new word totally unrelated to the plural?

The last two pairs

Alex Y

A fourth case of the first person pronoun:

mine/ours,

and a pair of verbs,

is/are.

Re: Larry's plural

Larry Barrett

OK, I slightly misstated the puzzle (getting old).

The word is 9 letters, not 8, and adding an s does not create the plural, but does create an entirely new word.

The word is timelines. Adding s creates timeliness.