16 April 2013

FISH OR FISHES

How often do we get confused about when to use the noun fish or fishes?

According to the dictionaries, the plural of fish can either be "fish" or "fishes", depending on the context that it is used. The plural "fish" is to be used when there are many individuals of the same species. The plural term "fishes" shall be used when there are more than one species of fish, regardless of the number of individuals of each species.

Some examples are shown below:

Example 1: 4 individual Tuna fish
A few of us shared 4 Tuna fish for the meal.

Example 2: 1 Grouper, 2 Salmons, 3 Sardines
There were a lot of fishes available for the buffet spread or there were 3 species of fishes available for the buffet spread.

Interesting?