to have less and less faith in DS teacher

[OrlandoWoolf]

He has to find some plurals for his spelling test.
Either she's being really clever or she does not actually know.

Dice

As she "has form" on homework mistakes and spelling errors - I suspect she does not know the mistake she's made.

die as the singular form of dice is pretty obsolete I'm afraid, YABU.

The singular form of dice is die. Look in a dictionary and that's what it is.

Maybe she is trying to see which child knows that dice is already plural?

Depends if she's going to insist that the plural of dice is dices.
Wait and see.

No one uses die as the singular for dice in real life.

School isn't real life though, in the same way that I'm spotted as a nerd because I use whom.

A singular form of dice is "die", however the more common singular form is dice.

Here's what the OED say:
www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/die-2

"In modern standard English, the singular die (rather than dice) is uncommon. Dice is used for both the singular and the plural."

www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/dice

"noun (plural same)

1a small cube with each side having a different number of spots on it, ranging from one to six, thrown and used in gambling and other games involving chance"

I stand corrected. Apparently it is historical. When did history change?

I would use dice as the singular form - but technically I always thought that die was the correct version. Pedants would pick people up on that.

I just have little faith in her because of other errors she's made.

But I have many polyhedra dice. So a die is not always a cube.
The definition is flawed.

Language changes all the time.
That's why dictionaries get updated.

I'm a maths teacher. None of the kids know what I'm on about if I say die.

It's going to disappear.

Along with people who use 'data' as if it is a plural.

Contemporary.
I still struggle with the evolution of that word.

"No one uses die as the singular for dice in real life."

Well, I often thought I was fairly invisible on MN, and this seems today that I don't exist at all. I am No One.

No one told me about die.

I blame the teachers for not teaching it.

We've also got curriculum and chateau.

That would be curricula and chateaux ( with a circumflex over the first a in chateaux)

Get your DS to write a really comprehensive response about how Die is the traditional singular term and Dice is the plural, but more commonly today, Dice is used to denote the singular, and Dices is the accepted plural.

She'll be well impressed.

My 7 year old ds refers to it as a die and often corrects his younger sister. My pedantic ways are rubbing off on him!

I was thinking about chateau. Do we do French or English?

Some of us are hanging on to the old ways.
My 11 year old uses die.

We've also got clergyman and chairman. My inner feminist is coming out.

Use the French for château/châteaux, just as you would for gâteau.

The thing with clergyman is that up until recently, you didn't really get female clergy (at least not in the mainstream). I can't remember the last time I say "chairman" at work. Meetings are chaired by chairs

she's a teacher, not God, you don't need to have faith in her!

Dices the accepted plural?! My arse!

I know that the correct singular is die, and realise that most people use the word dice for the singular these days. But I have NEVER heard anyone use the word "dices" to refer to more than one of them.

It'd be like saying "sheeps" - just dumb.

Not really sure why you have no faith in her based on the egs you have given, they represent a range of different ways of making the plural. If you don't like the clergy/chairman one you could get her to write that she prefers a non-gendered appellation"members of the clergy" or "chairs" but otherwise I can't see any cause for alarm. (she may not have written the questions herself anyway as there will be loads of pre-existing resources available to practise plurals).