Editing English plurals (section)

===Headless nouns===
In ''[[The Language Instinct]]'', linguist [[Steven Pinker]] discusses what he calls "headless words", typically [[bahuvrihi]] compounds, such as ''lowlife'' and ''flatfoot'', in which ''life'' and ''foot'' are not [[head (linguistics)|heads]] semantically; that is, a lowlife is not a type of life, and a flatfoot is not a type of foot. When the common form of such a word is singular, it is treated as if it has a regular plural, even if the final constituent of the word is usually pluralized in an irregular fashion. Thus the plural of ''lowlife'' is ''lowlifes'', not "lowlives", according to Pinker. Other proposed examples include:
{{block indent|{{wikitable
|-
|sabretooth||sabretooths
|-
|still life||still lifes
|-
|tenderfoot||tenderfoots
}}}}
An exception is ''[[Blackfoot]]'', of which the plural can be ''Blackfeet'', though that form of the name is officially rejected by the Blackfoot [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]] of Canada.

Another analogous case is that of sport team names such as the [[Miami Marlins]] and [[Toronto Maple Leafs]]. For these, see {{slink||Teams and their members}} below.