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Reduplicated plural
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<p>A reduplicated plural is a grammatical form achieved by the superfluous use of a second <a href="/facts/Plural/3VjXP7VF">plural</a> ending. </p><p>In <a href="/facts/English_language/tpkxGt7b">English</a> the plural is usually formed with the addition of 's': e.g. one cat, two cats; one chair, two chairs. In the <a href="/facts/Sussex_dialect/BTqcGu3s">Sussex dialect</a>, however, until relatively recently there existed a reduplicated plural: e.g. one ghost, two ghostes/ghostesses; one post, two postes/postesses (note that here the Sussex pluralisation instead of adding just 's' after 'st', adds either 'es' as its usual plural, or a reduplicated 'esses'. Reduplicated plural forms, or similar forms, can also appear in <a href="/facts/African_American_Vernacular_English/jhLocUkI">African American Vernacular English</a>, <a href="/facts/New_York_Latino_English/PgKFRrbD">New York Latino English</a>, and in some other rarer forms of American English, often in specific lexical items, such as <i>testes</i> /tɛstɪz/ rather than <i>tests</i> /tɛsts/. </p><p>Donald Mackenzie suggests that in Kipling's in <i><a href="/facts/Puck_of_Pook%2527s_Hill/a235ljYF">Puck of Pook's Hill</a></i> the word 'pharisees' apparently used by Shoesmith for <a href="/facts/Fairies/P5ca3mNx">fairies</a> was formed as a Sussex reduplicated plural. </p><p>In <i><a href="/facts/The_Hobbit/Tt5fpB1m">The Hobbit</a></i> and <i><a href="/facts/The_Lord_of_the_Rings/aS5RH7YT">The Lord of the Rings</a></i>, the character <a href="/facts/Gollum/GgooTk1b">Gollum</a> speaks with reduplicated plurals, often complaining about "sneaky little hobbitses". </p>