Make Your Editor Cry: Amoeba (Awkward Plural)
BLUF: (Bottom Line Up Front)
The plural of amoeba rightly is amoebae and wrongly can also be amoebas.
amoeba: any of a large genus (Amoeba) of naked rhizopod protozoans with lobed and never anastomosing pseudopodia, without permanent organelles or supporting structures, and of wide distribution in fresh and salt water and moist terrestrial environments
The singular of amoeba is amoeba. The proper plural of amoeba is amoebae with an added -e or wrongly and ignorantly amoebas with an added -s.
The noun amoeba has a Latin root, which is the derivation of the Latin plural amoebae. Through common usage, amoebas with an added -s, which conforms to the standard rules for forming plurals in English, is now also acceptable these days in the vulgate, though frowned upon because, you know, look up the meaning of “vulgate.”
At least in the narrative, be sure to use the proper Latin plural.
Examples:
This amoeba (singular) is predatory and lives by consuming bacteria.
Amoebae (plural) are so tiny that you need a microscope to see them.
Gregg Bridgeman is the Editor-in-Chief at Olivia Kimbrell Press. He is husband to best-selling Christian author Hallee Bridgeman and parent to three. He continues to proudly serve in the US Armed Forces and has done so in either an active or reserve capacity for more than twenty years as an airborne and air assault qualified paratrooper, earning a Bronze Star for his service. Most importantly, he was ordained in October of 2001 after surrendering his life to Christ decades earlier.
