The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak grammar was its regularity. Subject to a few exceptions which are mentioned below, all inflections followed the same rules. Thus, in all verbs the preterite and the past participle were the same and ended in -ed . The preterite of steal was stealed , the preterite of think was thinked , and so on throughout the language, all such forms as swam, gave, brought, spoke, taken , etc., being abolished. All plurals were made by adding -s or -es as the case might be. The plurals of man, ox, life , were mans, oxes, lifes . Comparison of adjectives was invariably made by adding -er, -est (good, gooder, goodest ), irregular forms and the more, most formation being suppressed.