The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

OBS. 24.—Some nouns, from the nature of the things meant, have no plural. For, as there ought to be no word, or inflection of a word, for which we cannot conceive an appropriate meaning or use, it follows that whatever is of such a species that it cannot be taken in any plural sense, must naturally be named by a word which is singular only: as, perry, cider, coffee, flax, hemp, fennel, tallow, pitch, gold, sloth, pride, meekness, eloquence. But there are some things, which have in fact neither a comprehensible unity, nor any distinguishable plurality, and which may therefore be spoken of in either number; for the distinction of unity and plurality is, in such instances, merely verbal; and, whichever number we take, the word will be apt to want the other: as, dregs, or sediment; riches, or wealth; pains, or toil; ethics, or moral philosophy; politics, or the science of government; belles-lettres, or polite literature. So darkness, which in English appears to have no plural, is expressed in Latin by tenebræ, in French by ténèbres, which have no singular. It is necessary that every noun should be understood to be of one number or the other; for, in connecting it with a verb, or in supplying its place by a pronoun, we must assume it to be either singular or plural. And it is desirable that singulars and plurals should always abide by their appropriate forms, so that they may be thereby distinguished with readiness. But custom, which regulates this, as every thing else of the like nature, does not always adjust it well; or, at least, not always upon principles uniform in themselves and obvious to every intellect.

OBS. 25.—Nouns of multitude, when taken collectively, generally admit the regular plural form; which of course is understood with reference to the individuality of the whole collection, considered as one thing: but, when taken distributively, they have a plural signification without the form; and, in this case, their plurality refers to the individuals that compose the assemblage. Thus, a council, a committee, a jury, a meeting, a society, a flock, or a herd, is singular; and the regular plurals are councils, committees, juries, meetings, societies, flocks, herds. But these, and many similar words, may be taken plurally without the s, because a collective noun is the name of many individuals together. Hence we may say, "The council were unanimous."—"The committee are in consultation."—"The jury were unable to agree."—"The meeting have shown their discretion."—"The society have settled their dispute."—"The flock are widely scattered."—"The whole herd were drowned in the sea." The propriety of the last example seems questionable; because whole implies unity, and were drowned is plural. Where a purer concord can be effected, it may be well to avoid such a construction, though examples like it are not uncommon: as, "Clodius was acquitted by a corrupt jury, that had palpably taken shares of money before they gave their verdict."—Bacon. "And the whole multitude of the people were praying without, at the time of incense."—Luke, i, 10.

OBS. 26.—Nouns have, in some instances, a unity or plurality of meaning, which seems to be directly at variance with their form. Thus, cattle, for beasts of pasture, and pulse, for peas and beans, though in appearance singulars only, are generally, if not always, plural; and summons, gallows, chintz, series, superficies, molasses, suds, hunks, jakes, trapes, and corps, with the appearance of plurals, are generally, if not always, singular. Dr. Webster says that cattle is of both numbers; but wherein the oneness of cattle can consist, I know not. The Bible says, "God made—cattle after their kind."—Gen., i, 25. Here kind is indeed singular, as if cattle were a natural genus of which one must be a cattle; as sheep are a natural genus of which one is a sheep: but whether properly expressed so or not, is questionable; perhaps it ought to be, "and cattle after their kinds." Dr. Gillies says, in his History of Greece, "cattle was regarded as the most convenient measure of value." This seems to me to be more inaccurate and unintelligible, than to say, "Sheep was regarded as the most convenient measure of value." And what would this mean? Sheep is not singular, unless limited to that number by some definitive word; and cattle I conceive to be incapable of any such limitation.

OBS. 27.—Of the last class of words above cited, some may assume an additional es, when taken plurally; as, summonses, gallowses, chintses: the rest either want the plural, or have it seldom and without change of form. Corps, a body of troops, is a French word, which, when singular, is pronounced c=ore, and when plural, c=ores. But corpse, a dead body, is an English word, pronounced k~orps, and making the plural in two syllables, corpses. Summonses is given in Cobb's Dictionary as the plural of summons; but some authors have used the latter with a plural verb: as, "But Love's first summons seldom are obey'd."—Waller's Poems, p. 8. Dr. Johnson says this noun is from the verb to summon; and, if this is its origin, the singular ought to be a summon, and then summons would be a regular plural. But this "singular noun with a plural termination," as Webster describes it, more probably originated from the Latin verb submoneas, used in the writ, and came to us through the jargon of law, in which we sometimes hear men talk of "summonsing witnesses." The authorities for it, however, are good enough; as, "This present summons."—SHAK.: Joh. Dict. "This summons he resolved to disobey."—FELL: ib. Chints is called by Cobb a "substantive plural" and defined as "cotton cloths, made in India;" but other lexicographers define it as singular, and Worcester (perhaps more properly) writes it chintz. Johnson cites Pope as speaking of "a charming chints," and I have somewhere seen the plural formed by adding es. "Of the Construction of single Words, or Serieses of Words."—Ward's Gram., p. 114. Walker, in his Elements of Elocution, makes frequent use of the word "serieses," and of the phrase "series of serieses." But most writers, I suppose, would doubt the propriety of this practice; because, in Latin, all nouns of the fifth declension, such as caries, congeries, series, species, superficies, make their nominative and vocative cases alike in both numbers. This, however, is no rule for writing English. Dr. Blair has used the word species in a plural sense; though I think he ought rather to have preferred the regular English word kinds: "The higher species of poetry seldom admit it."—Rhet., p. 403. Specie, meaning hard money, though derived or corrupted from species, is not the singular of that word; nor has it any occasion for a plural form, because we never speak of a specie. The plural of gallows, according to Dr. Webster, is gallowses; nor is that form without other authority, though some say, gallows is of both numbers and not to be varied: "Gallowses were occasionally put in order by the side of my windows."—Leigh Hunt's Byron, p. 369.

   "Who would not guess there might be hopes,
    The fear of gallowses and ropes,
    Before their eyes, might reconcile
    Their animosities a while?"—Hudibras, p. 90.

OBS. 28.—Though the plural number is generally derived from the singular, and of course must as generally imply its existence, we have examples, and those not a few, in which the case is otherwise. Some nouns, because they signify such things as nature or art has made plural or double; some, because they have been formed from other parts of speech by means of the plural ending which belongs to nouns; and some, because they are compounds in which a plural word is principal, and put last, are commonly used in the plural number only, and have, in strict propriety, no singular. Though these three classes of plurals may not be perfectly separable, I shall endeavour to exhibit them in the order of this explanation.

1. Plurals in meaning and form: analects, annals,[144] archives, ashes, assets, billiards, bowels, breeches, calends, cates, chops, clothes, compasses, crants, eaves, embers, estovers, forceps, giblets, goggles, greaves, hards or hurds, hemorrhoids, ides, matins, nippers, nones, obsequies, orgies,[145] piles, pincers or pinchers, pliers, reins, scissors, shears, skittles, snuffers, spectacles, teens, tongs, trowsers, tweezers, umbles, vespers, victuals.

2. Plurals by formation, derived chiefly from adjectives: acoustics, aeronautics, analytics, bitters, catoptrics, commons, conics, credentials, delicates, dioptrics, economics, ethics, extraordinaries, filings, fives, freshes, glanders, gnomonics, goods, hermeneutics, hustings, hydrodynamics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, hysterics, inwards, leavings, magnetics, mathematics, measles, mechanics, mnemonics, merils, metaphysics, middlings, movables, mumps, nuptials, optics, phonics, phonetics, physics,[146] pneumatics, poetics, politics, riches, rickets, settlings, shatters, skimmings, spherics, staggers, statics, statistics, stays, strangles, sundries, sweepings, tactics, thanks, tidings, trappings, vives, vitals, wages,[147] withers, yellows.

3. Plurals by composition: backstairs, cocklestairs, firearms,[148] headquarters, hotcockles, spatterdashes, self-affairs. To these may be added the Latin words, aborigines, antipodes, antes, antoeci, amphiscii, anthropophagi, antiscii, ascii, literati, fauces, regalia, and credenda, with the Italian vermicelli, and the French belles-lettres and entremets.

OBS. 29.—There are several nouns which are set down by some writers as wanting the singular, and by others as having it. Of this class are the following: amends,[149] ancients, awns, bots, catacombs, chives, cloves, cresses, dogsears, downs, dregs,[150] entrails, fetters, fireworks, greens, gyves, hatches, intestines, lees,[151] lungs, malanders, mallows, moderns, oats, orts, pleiads, premises, relics, remains, shackles, shambles,[152] stilts, stairs, tares, vetches. The fact is, that these words have, or ought to have, the singular, as often as there is any occasion to use it; and the same may, in general terms, be said of other nouns, respecting the formation of the plural.[153] For where the idea of unity or plurality comes clearly before the mind, we are very apt to shape the word accordingly, without thinking much about the authorities we can quote for it.

OBS. 30.—In general, where both numbers exist in common use, there is some palpable oneness or individuality, to which the article a or an is applicable; the nature of the species is found entire in every individual of it; and a multiplication of the individuals gives rise to plurality in the name. But the nature of a mass, or of an indefinite multitude taken collectively, is not found in individuals as such; nor is the name, whether singular, as gold, or plural, as ashes, so understood. Hence, though every noun must be of one number or the other, there are many which have little or no need of both. Thus we commonly speak of wheat, barley, or oats, collectively; and very seldom find occasion for any other forms of these words. But chafferers at the corn-market, in spite of Cobbett,[154] will talk about wheats and barleys, meaning different kinds[155] or qualities; and a gardener, if he pleases, will tell of an oat, (as does Milton, in his Lycidas,) meaning a single seed or plant. But, because wheat or barley generally means that sort of grain in mass, if he will mention a single kernel, he must call it a grain of wheat or a barleycorn. And these he may readily make plural, to specify any particular number; as, five grains of wheat, or three barleycorns.

OBS. 31.—My chief concern is with general principles, but the illustration of these requires many particular examples—even far more than I have room to quote. The word amends is represented by Murray and others, as being singular as well as plural; but Webster's late dictionaries exhibit amend as singular, and amends as plural, with definitions that needlessly differ, though not much. I judge "an amends" to be bad English; and prefer the regular singular, an amend. The word is of French origin, and is sometimes written in English with a needless final e; as, "But only to make a kind of honourable amende to God."—Rollin's Ancient Hist., Vol. ii, p. 24. The word remains Dr. Webster puts down as plural only, and yet uses it himself in the singular: "The creation of a Dictator, even for a few months, would have buried every remain of freedom."—Webster's Essays, p. 70. There are also other authorities for this usage, and also for some other nouns that are commonly thought to have no singular; as, "But Duelling is unlawful and murderous, a remain of the ancient Gothic barbarity."—Brown's Divinity, p. 26. "I grieve with the old, for so many additional inconveniences, more than their small remain of life seemed destined to undergo."—POPE: in Joh. Dict. "A disjunctive syllogism is one whose major premise is disjunctive."—Hedge's Logic. "Where should he have this gold? It is some poor fragment, some slender ort of his remainder."—SHAK.: Timon of Athens.

OBS. 32.—There are several nouns which are usually alike in both numbers. Thus, deer, folk, fry, gentry, grouse, hose, neat, sheep, swine, vermin, and rest, (i. e. the rest, the others, the residue,) are regular singulars, but they are used also as plurals, and that more frequently. Again, alms, aloes, bellows, means, news, odds, shambles, and species, are