Editing English plurals (section)

====Apophonic plurals====

The plural is sometimes formed by changing the vowel sound of the singular (these are sometimes called ''mutated plurals''):
{{block indent|{{wikitable
|foot||feet
|-
|goose||geese
|-
|louse||lice
|-
|dormouse||dormice
|-
|man||men
|-
|mouse||mice
|-
|tooth||teeth
|-
|woman||women {{IPA|/ˈwɪmᵻn/}}
}}}}

This group consists of words that historically belong to the Old English consonant declension, see {{slink|Germanic umlaut|I-mutation in Old English}}. There are many compounds of ''man'' and ''woman'' that form their plurals in the same way: ''postmen'', ''policewomen'', etc.

The plural of ''mongoose'' is ''mongooses'' or sometimes ''mongeese''. ''Mongeese'' is a back-formation by analogy to ''goose'' / ''geese'' and is often used in a jocular context. The form ''meese'' is sometimes also used humorously as the plural of ''moose''—normally ''moose'' or ''mooses''—or even of ''mouse''.