plural of stuff

"Stuff" in its slang form becomes a plural through context. So the plural of "stuff" is really just "stuff".

Now the "fish" and "fishes" issue is important. They do not mean the same thing.

"Fish" as a plural means more than one fish.

"Fishes" means one is talking about a plural of a plural, or rather several groups of fish.

A better word to use to illustrate this is "people".

"People" = more than one person

"Peoples" = More that one group of people.

For example:

There are 50 people in the room. Each one is a representative of the various peoples that make up this great nation.

So when you take a word that is already plural, and "pluralize" it, you usually need it to mean that there is a specific distinction between the plural objects.

For example:

"breads"

I like bread, I eat a lot of bread. But in a bakery I can find a wide variety of breads.

So "stuffs" does exist. e.g. "foodstuffs".

But if you are merely talking about a plural of "stuff" it should be "stuff".

Only use "stuffs" in the rare situation in which you seek to delienate between categories of "stuff". The only other valid use I can think of off the top of my head is the verb form.

e.g.

So I said "where are you going to put the Christmas tree?" And he replies, "bend over and I'll show you!" and stuffs.....

lol. thanks for that bit of info. talk about getting into the christmas spirit...

just to clarify some stuff. if we're referring to different species, would that be different species of fish or fishes? and for that matter, various stuff or stuffs?

my understanding thus far is that a guy can catch a number of fish out of all the fishes in the sea. true?

The distinction is not necessarily based on what the groupings are and collocation really takes over.

For example, I would say "species of fish".

But I would also say "A variety of fishes are indigenous to these waters."

It really depends on the intent, and the collocation.

For example, descibing 5 different ethinicities in an elevator as "5 peoples" would go against traditional collocation and sound very wrong.

If you are going to err, err on the side of using the standard plural form, as the irregular forms are awkward when used in odd ways while replacing them with the regular plural is almost always right and sounds better.

I know that sounds confusing and ill defined but at least I can answer your question about stuff precisely.

"Various" takes a countable noun. So "various stuff" is always wrong.

Now countable is another tricky issue and some things can be both as well, it also depends on the focus of the statement.

e.g. "rice"

When you are speaking of the size of a serving you will not likely be considering "rice" as countable. So you'll use "much" or "a lot of" but not "many".

"Grains" is a countable word and will take either "a lot of" or "many" (remember that "a lot of" works for both so it is very useful).

But even "rice" can be countable in certain scenarios.

Again, the easier example to use is bread.

"I had too much bread" - not countable
"They have many breads for sale" - countable

So it depends on the focus of the sentence, but beyond that you need to select the right words to use with the plural depending on whether it's countable or not.

"Many bread" is never right, neither is "many stuff" unless you are describing the activities of a substantial portion of the population and their disposal of their Christmas trees.

Likewise "various stuff" is always wrong, unless you know someone named "various" who is getting rid of his Christmas tree and your suggestion to him is delivered in the form of an imperative.

lol! that had never crossed my mind. but it's good to know my options.

again, i thank you for clearing things up.

that being said, i think there is an apparent need for the environmental agency to come up with a proper and decent manner of disposing christmas trees to relieve the otherwise overworked medical staff at ER.

To my way of thinking... stuff is plural.

The singular of stuff is thing.

Agreed, welcome to A2K, let's hope you never pull Christmas tree disposal duty around here.

Well last night the reason for the Christmas tree kiddin' occured, I had to haul the stupid tree out and dispose of it.

Mind you I hated the tree all along and it pisses me off that I have to pull Christmas tree work when I didn't want a tree altogether.

But now I think we are safe from Christmas tree jokes. And not a moment too soon.