Did You Know?
THE PLURAL OF CHILD
You know that the plural of child is children, and it forms its possessive by adding 's, so we say and write children's clothes, children's books and so on. The word child and only two other words in the English language form their plurals by adding (r)en. The other two words are ox (plural oxen) and an old-fashioned, very formal and religious plural for brother (brethren). Of course, brothers is used as the plural form of brother for nearly all occasions these days, and not many people talk about oxen, either - which leaves children as the only word in common use that is made plural in this way.