I have used, as the plural of fish, fishes and fishies and fish. Usually I use fish, but can recall using fishies in association with talking to children or when there was a pool filled with, say, goldfish, and I'd say, "Look at all the pretty fishies" or "Look at all the little fishies." Sometimes I use fishes when writing, or when, in those rare instances, I catch myself before my utterance as if that *is the proper form. But usually I use fish. I don't see any real rhyme or reason for the interchange of usage other than for the obvious juvenile association. Anyone else?

>Rupert Brooke

Heaven

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud!--Death eddies near--
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.<

I've seen this edited, by some obviouly full-of-themselves editor, into wishes/fishes.

> I don't see any real rhyme or reason...

and in English, you expected juan?! Swimming with alternatives it is; effishiency may be less obvious ;)

Geez, what bit bucket did my response fall into?

It's fish when they're all one species and fishes when they're different species.

I beg to differ. Thought that certainly works for one type of discrimination, if the individual fishes were markedly different, I can imagine conversations using "fishes" even if they were of one species. In other words, whenever the focus is on difference between the examples, I think fishes could be a legitimate use. But there again, I'm just a nincomplea tangler :)

I sense a full moon...

>I've seen this edited, by some obviouly full-of-themselves editor...

here's one of those PC constructions that just comes across as absolutely tortured. (and was probably planted for that very reason.. :Þ )

>edited, by some obviouly full-of-themselves editor...<
GRRRRR!! How DARE anyone change one bit of what my darling Rupert wrote! He also wrote a poem called 'The Fish', but only refers to it as "he" in that one: no relevance here.