Automatically pluralize any english word the right way

June 24, 2008 | 0 comments | 1 Page

If you need a function to automatically pluralize a word for you in a proper english manor you can use this function. All you do is pass the word you want to turn plural through the function and the plural version will be returned.

If no match is found for a plural alternative of the word passed in to the function, the word passed in will be returned.

Pluralization examples:

$non_plural = pluralize("Word");

Virus = Virii

Person = People

Code Monkey = Code Monkeys

Deer = Deer

Aaron = Aarons

function pluralize($word){ $plurals = array( '/(quiz)$/i' => '$1zes', '/^(ox)$/i' => '$1en', '/([m|l])ouse$/i' => '$1ice', '/(matr|vert|ind)ix|ex$/i' => '$1ices', '/(x|ch|ss|sh)$/i' => '$1es', '/([^aeiouy]|qu)ies$/i' => '$1y', '/([^aeiouy]|qu)y$/i' => '$1ies', '/(hive)$/i' => '$1s', '/(?:([^f])fe|([lr])f)$/i' => '$1$2ves', '/sis$/i' => 'ses', '/([ti])um$/i' => '$1a', '/(buffal|tomat)o$/i' => '$1oes', '/(bu)s$/i' => '$1ses', '/(alias|status)/i'=> '$1es', '/(octop|vir)us$/i'=> '$1i', '/(ax|test)is$/i'=> '$1es', '/s$/i'=> 's', '/$/'=> 's'); $neverplural = array('equipment', 'information', 'rice', 'money', 'species', 'series', 'fish', 'sheep', 'deer'); $bogus = array( 'monkey' => 'monkeys', 'person' => 'people', 'man' => 'men', 'child' => 'children', 'sex' => 'sexes', 'move' => 'moves'); $lowercased_word = strtolower($word); foreach ($neverplural as $_never){ if(substr($lowercased_word,(-1*strlen($_never))) == $_never){ return $word; } } foreach ($bogus as $_plural => $_singular){ if (preg_match('/('.$_plural.')$/i', $word, $arr)) { return preg_replace('/('.$_plural.')$/i', substr($arr[0],0,1).substr($_singular,1), $word); } } foreach ($plurals as $rule => $replace) { if (preg_match($rule, $word)) { return preg_replace($rule, $replace, $word); } } return ($word); }

· Keywords: pluralize, plural, english, words, function

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