It's hard to confuse the left with the right shoes and put them on the wrong foot. To do this, you need to be either very small or completely insane.
But when shoes appear in oral or written speech, sometimes it is difficult with them. Those who had such a choice - a pair of boots or a pair of boots - should put on a pair of socks under them, a pair of trousers on top, put a pair of scissors in their pocket and go in search of the correct answers. In the article, we will consider how to decline the word "boot" in the genitive case.
Pair of boots or boots? What the rules of the Russian language say
Here the initial form of the noun is important (case - nominative, number - singular). When it ends in a solid consonant, then their ending is in the genitive plural: -ov.
For example:
- orange - oranges;
- computer - computers;
- fly agaric -fly agaric.
So that's right, a pair of boots? Or a boot after all?
This rule, like any other, has its exceptions. That is, the same nouns with a solid consonant at the end, which in the genitive plural will have a zero (none) ending.
For example:
Weared (what?) one stocking - did not buy (what?) new stockings
Thus, these words in the two indicated forms completely coincide. Here lies the answer to the question, which is correct: a pair of shoes or a pair of shoes? This is also an exception. Singular is a lost shoe, plural is a variety of shoes.
The same with the word (one) shoe. Genitive plural - didn't find my shoes.
Other exceptions
Nouns that do not follow the rule include cases from the table.
| Exception Case | Examples of usage |
| The name in the collective sense of people belonging to a particular nationality |
Live among Armenians. Learn Georgians. Love Tatars. Respect Ossetians. |
|
The name of the military belonging to certain formations (which are characterized by the use of predominantly in the plural) |
The squad of midshipmen won the fight. A group of partisans disappeared intoforest. A small part of the soldiers survived. |
| The word "man" | There were a lot of people in the hallway. |
|
Names of paired objects (it is to this group that the case under study belongs and we can conclude how to speak without error: a pair of shoes or boots) |
Don't forget your eyes. Did not stain clean cuffs. Ruined a pair of stockings. Lost his shoulder straps. Proud of the beauty of the epaulette. I polished a pair of boots. Tried on more than one pair of shoes. |
| Measurement units and measures (feature: when they are called not for counting, the Genitive plural form is used with the ending -ov. |
The blackboard says "500 Watts". Got hit with 220 volts. A current of 5 amps. Calculated for 1,000 gigabytes. I will save you extra pounds. I'm sorely short of gigabytes. |
Boots, socks, trousers. And scissors in my pocket
In order not to "flaunt" illiteracy, one must clearly remember the right choice: a pair of boots or boots? Of course the first one.
There is another interesting question here about what is above the shoes. About trousers. So you won’t immediately answer how much it is: a pair of trousers. Think about it. If both the socks worn under the trousers and the boots are paired items, then the pants, it seems, are not.
But colloquial speech denotes someany object if it consists of two identical parts. It turns out that a pair of trousers is one thing. As well as a pair of scissors - these are just scissors, which, let's say, are in your pants pocket.
If you type on a computer, it will, of course, underline the wrong word "boots". But if you work with a pen or pencil, you need to know how to spell a pair of shoes or a pair of shoes? The same is true in oral speech, where a competent interlocutor can also emphasize a mistake, of course, but it would be better not to make it.
