Grammar
Words With and Without s: Very Different Meanings
By Rowena Tam (露雲娜老師)
· 15 October 2025· 7 min read英語中不少詞彙在字尾加了 s 後，意思便截然不同。以下列舉十組常見例子：
| 無 s（意思） | 例句 | 有 s（意思） | 例句 |
|---|---|---|---|
| air（空氣） | We need some fresh air. | airs（傲慢） | We don't like the way she puts on airs. |
| advice（建議） | Our teacher has given us very good advice. | advices（通知書） | Keep all the remittance advices in a folder. |
| art（藝術） | My brother is very keen on art. | arts（文科） | My sister has a Bachelor of Arts degree. |
| beside（旁） | The post office is beside the coffee shop. | besides（除了） | Besides milk and butter, we need some vegetable oil. |
| blind（瞎的） | Love is blind. | blinds（百葉簾） | The blinds were drawn. |
| custom（風俗） | It is the custom in some countries for women to marry young. | customs（海關） | The customs officer inspected my passport. |
| drink（喝） | We should drink 8 glasses of water every day. | drinks（飲料） | I love cold drinks in summer. |
| exercise（運動鍛煉） | Jogging is my favourite form of exercise. | exercises（練習） | There are many supplementary exercises in each chapter. |
| force（力量） | The key was twisted with too much force. | forces（軍隊） | Police forces across Asia have started to interlink their databases. |
| good（好的） | Good things take time. | goods（商品） | All the goods are clearly priced. |
正如霍金（Stephen Hawking）所言，語言的精妙在於細節。字尾多一個 s，意思可以大不同。