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Invisible wrote:
> I just spent 20 minutes reading various Wikipedia articles on grammar.
>
> My head hurts now.
>
> All I was trying to figure out is why there's no such word as "sheeps".
> Several other words have this property, but I have no idea what it's
> called.
>
> Also: "transparent" is an adjective. But what the hell is
> "transparency"? [Aside from also happening to be a noun. God English is
> complicated!]
Generally (there are probably exceptions, this is English), for any
adjective ending in -ent of Latin origin, the word ending -ency is the
state or quality of having the property denoted by the adjective, and
sometimes can refer to a specific thing that has this property.
An example:
"While campaigning for the presidency, the president promised that there
would be _transparency_ in his administration. However, since taking
office, there have been many things that are not at all _transparent_."
Regards,
John
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