What Is the Plural of ‘Still Life’?

Plural of nouns life To be lifeas in “private life of the rich and famous” or “the fireman who saved life of two stranded passengers.”

But the plural of artwork (as in a painting or photograph) is called still life?

why is it still alive?

And how do you capture such nuanced shadows?

Inspired by Dutch times still life, Larsen’s oil paintings depict delicately crafted bouquets by pressing oil paints from frosted ends of various shapes and sizes. — Nina Wolpow, Brooklyn RailwayDecember 11, 2018

Twenty percent of the money Hog Bristle Painters makes from the sale of portraits, landscapes and still life at The Barn cultural center in Mariemont in February will benefit La Soupe. — Jeanne Houck, Questioner CincinnatiJanuary 21, 2019

These examples follow accepted standards. Even though it ends in life, still life take a regular -S many: still life.

Compounds ending in an irregular plural noun usually have the same irregular plural form as the base noun: Wolf Man become werewolves; stepchild become stepchild.

So why not the plural for still life follow the same pattern? The reason that can be best explained is one of semantics rather than grammar. One way to look at the question is to look at how other nouns end in . life digitized.

Noun Kingdom Comefor example, usually (but not always) plurals like after life:

“The Good Place” created by Michael Schur (who is also behind the shows “Parks and Recreation” and “The Office”), fantasy after life of four people, in balance, most of whom live average lives on earth. — Laura Turner, washington articlesJanuary 26, 2019

All children love the country, love flowers, meadows, birds, butterflies; or if some do not, despair, O Philanthropy, their after life! —Edward Bulwer-Lytton, What will he do with it?1858

Some writers like for it -S many:

BART is not the only agency looking at innovation Kingdom Come for their vehicle. Muni buses have been repurposed as emergency vehicles for the San Francisco Fire Department, San Francisco International Airport shuttles, and school busses operated by former NFL executive Marshawn Lynch. — Joe Fitzgerald Rodríguez, San Francisco JudgeJanuary 5, 2019

Then the noun low life (“a person of low social status or moral character”), which we indicate -S plural as fancy and forms inferior as accepted but less common:

Meanwhile, David Dunn and his now grown son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clarke) are running a two-person security company, David uses his great intuition and strength to stop low life and street crime. —Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-TimesJanuary 16, 2019

Stories about Buscemi tend to speak of his appearance as if he were a Don Knotts and Quasimodo ferret, mistaking him for low life and the antics he often plays on screen. —Chris Nashaaty, Weekly entertainmentMarch 5, 2005

Then there are other compounds to consider:

There is food, of course, and no need for additional ammunition. All of these have expiry date and are often sold or otherwise used, while fresh ingredients are added. —John MacPhee, La Place de la Concorde Suisse1983

This city doesn’t stop, it has one of the liveliest cities nightlife in the country, and it tends to explode when big festivals are around. — Noe Cugny, AbnormalMay 10, 2018

While there is bound to be change, the usual trend is Kingdom Come, nightlifeAnd expiry to have a plural formation like lifewhile still life And low life tend to be treated as their own independent animals, plural with -S (with frequent appearances of inferior).

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IN Kingdom Come, nightlifeAnd expirycompounds are found that do not semantically extend too far from at least one meaning of life. The afterlife is, in a way, a kind of life, or at least comparable to the feeling of “the period from birth to death” life. nightlife use the “human activity” meaning of life. Expiry refers to the “time or duration of something” meaning of the word.

But still life is not a kind of life, nor is it a measure of life, nor is it an expected aspect of life. It’s a work of art that happens to end with the word life. Our instinct to carry the plural is standard for life IN Kingdom Come, nightlifeAnd expiry it doesn’t feel right when we diversify pictures, as well as people with certain personalities, just like when we diversify low life EQUAL low life. So we analyze still life regardless of its relationship to its component lifeand so handle it in the usual way -S many. (This could be the reason behind San Francisco Judge writers use Kingdom Comewhere bus reuse may not be enough to compare with the feeling of “birth to death” life keep the plural of the word.)

It is this logic of distance from the original semantic meaning of a word that allows us to say that a person hits the ball fly out to the left field rather than fly out: although we’re fine with just the irregular past format flew to what birds and planes do and their figurative extension (“we flew through presentation”), there is enough semantic distance between that and what a hitter does with a baseball to treat the latter as its own artifact, considered in its own right, and then conjugate it in its own way.

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Categories: Usage Notes
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