Language point

Environmentalists warn that the present water crisis is being further aggravated by ongoing deforestation in ecologically fragile areas.

There are different ways of turning a singular noun into a plural noun, the most common one being adding an 's', eg. doctors, books.

However, what about the word 'crisis'? A lot of people mistakenly use 'crisis' as both the singular and plural forms. However, the plural form should be 'crises'.

Most nouns ending with '-is' have plurals in which the '-is' is replaced by '-es'. Other examples include: analysis/analyses, axis/axes, basis/bases, diagnosis/diagnoses, hypothesis/hypotheses, metamorphosis/metamorphoses, neurosis/neuroses, parenthesis/parentheses, synopsis/synopses.

An easy way to remember which is the singular form and which is the plural form is to bear in mind that '-es' is also a plural suffix in words like 'buses' and 'churches'.