This time around I promise to at least double your reading pleasure. How do I plan to do that? Well this week I’m going to take a look at how we form plurals of words — and not those wimpy ones that need just an “s” added to their ends either.

Nope, I’m talking about the words that need all kinds of funny spellings and strange endings to turn them into more than one thing. For example, some plurals are formed by adding “es” to the end of the word after first changing its “f” to a “v,” as in: shelves, elves and wolves. In some cases the plural of “beef” is “beeves.” (No jokes, look it ups.) Unless you’re disagreeing with two or more people, in which case you have beefs with them.

And then there are dwarfs. Or are they dwarves? It depends. According to J.R.R. Tolkien in the introduction to his 1937 book “The Hobbit,” dwarfs are the type of guys that hang around with Snow White, while the beings that populate his book were called dwarves, a term he coined in order to give them the dignity that lesser dwarfs could not attain.

Some plurals end in “a,” such as when “criterion” becomes “criteria” (my Encarta Dictionary calls “criterias” a “bogus plural”). Other singular words following the same pattern are: millennium, phenomenon, bacterium, candelabrum and stadium. (Yup sports fans, stadia, though “stadiums” sounds way better to our ears.)

Other plurals end with “i,” such as those celebrity-stalking paparazzi, who are named after sidewalk photographer Signore Paparrazo in Federico Fellini’s 1960 move “La Dolce Vita.” More singular words whose plurals end in “i” are: spaghetto, graffito and confetto.

In the animal kingdom, more than one moose are still moose, while a mongoose and his friends are mongooses, yet a goose and her flock are geese. Go figure. (The two other words whose plurals are formed by changing their “o’s” to “e’s” are “tooth” and “foot.”) For the four-legged-type mouse, “mice” is the preferred plural, while “mouses” seems to rule the day when we’re discussing computer accessories.

Joining “mouse” with more than one plural are words including “opus,” which has the common plural “opuses,”  and “genius,” which becomes “geniuses” when we’re talking about really smart people and “genii” when referring to beings in the spirit world.

As far as I can see, “alumnus” has to win some kind of award for having the most plural forms. Several female college grads are “alumnae,” while “alumni” can refer to either a bunch of guys or graduates of both genders. Or you can always use the genderless clipped word, “alums.”

And then there is “woman,” which breaks all the rules. Whenever there’s more than one woman around, we usually end up using the only English word that becomes a plural by changing an “a” to an “e,” and in doing so simultaneously changes the pronunciation of the “o” to an “i” sound. That was all too much for well-known lexicographer Noah Webster, who lobbied unsuccessfully for the word to be spelled “wimmin.”

Finally I’ll attempt to answer that burning question that certainly comes to everyone’s mind whenever they spot one Prius parked next to another: “What is the plural of ‘Prius’? It must be ‘Priuses,’ right?” Latin scholars say that one plural for “Prius” (which translates to “prior” or “to go before”) is “Prioria,” while Toyota says “Prii” (pronounced PREE-eye) is the correct plural of its gas-efficient car.

So which is it? New York Times columnist Ben Zimmer wrote that “We might as well form the word the way English plurals are formed.” And, given the myriad ways they’re formed, just how would that be, Mr. Zimmer? I don’t usually take sides in matters such as these, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that I prefer “Prioria.” But will it play in Peoria?

Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.”