cutlery
[ kuht-luh-ree ]
noun
cutting instruments collectively, especially knives for cutting food.
utensils, as knives, forks, and spoons, used at the table for serving and eating food.
the trade or business of a cutler.
What is the plural of cutlery? Is ‘cutlery’ an uncountable noun? Is it cutleries? Or is it just cutlery? In Canada we say multiple beer are beers but multiples moose are not mooses.
Pluralisation is a grammatical conundrum. Can flatware be flatwares? Can silverware be silvewares? They all seems to be cursed. Spoon is spoons, fork is forks, knife is knives but cutlery and flatware just don’t seem to enjoy being pluralized.
Over at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cutlery they say “cutlery (countable and uncountable, plural cutleries)”. This isn’t helping. And someone else says “Cutlery is an uncountable noun. We cannot say a cutlery, but we can say, the cutlery, some cutlery or much cutlery.”
In an interesting article at Punchng.com Akeem Lasisi dives into this unusual cutlery writing problem. It’s something that has plagued us for years and we find it interesting. You might not, but we do, and sometimes we do post for us 🙂
