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

proper plurals, but most of them are oftener construed as singulars. Folk and fry are collective nouns. Folk means people; a folk, a people: as, "The ants are a people not strong;"—"The conies are but a feeble folk."—Prov., xxx, 25, 26. "He laid his hands on a few sick folk, and healed them."—Mark, vi, 5. Folks, which ought to be the plural of folk, and equivalent to peoples, is now used with reference to a plurality of individuals, and the collective word seems liable to be entirely superseded by it. A fry is a swarm of young fishes, or of any other little creatures living in water: so called, perhaps, because their motions often make the surface fry. Several such swarms might properly be called fries; but this form can never be applied to the individuals, without interfering with the other. "So numerous was the fry."—Cowper. "The fry betake themselves to the neighbouring pools."—Quarterly Review. "You cannot think more contemptuously of these gentry than they were thought of by the true prophets."—Watson's Apology, p. 93. "Grouse, a heathcock."—Johnson.

   "The 'squires in scorn will fly the house
    For better game, and look for grouse."—Swift.

"Here's an English tailor, come hither for stealing out of a French hose."—Shak. "He, being in love, could not see to garter his hose."—Id. Formerly, the plural was hosen: "Then these men were bound, in their coats, their hosen, and their hats."—Dan., iii, 21. Of sheep, Shakspeare has used the regular plural: "Two hot sheeps, marry!"—Love's Labour Lost, Act ii, Sc. 1.

   "Who both by his calf and his lamb will be known,
    May well kill a neat and a sheep of his own."—Tusser.

    "His droves of asses, camels, herds of neat,
    And flocks of sheep, grew shortly twice as great."—Sandys.

"As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout."—Prov., xi, 22. "A herd of many swine, feeding."—Matt., viii, 30. "An idle person only lives to spend his time, and eat the fruits of the earth, like a vermin or a wolf."—Taylor. "The head of a wolf, dried and hanged up, will scare away vermin."—Bacon. "Cheslip, a small vermin that lies under stones or tiles."—SKINNER: in Joh. and in Web. Dict. "This is flour, the rest is bran."—"And the rest were blinded."—Rom., xi, 7. "The poor beggar hath a just demand of an alms."—Swift. "Thine alms are come up for a memorial before God."—Acts, x, 4. "The draught of air performed the function of a bellows."—Robertson's Amer., ii, 223. "As the bellows do."—Bicknell's Gram., ii, 11. "The bellows are burned."—Jer., vi, 29. "Let a gallows be made."—Esther, v, 14. "Mallows are very useful in medicine."—Wood's Dict. "News," says Johnson, "is without the singular, unless it be considered as singular."—Dict. "So is good news from a far country."—Prov., xxv, 25. "Evil news rides fast, while good news baits."—Milton. "When Rhea heard these news, she fled."—Raleigh. "News were brought to the queen."—Hume's Hist., iv, 426. "The news I bring are afflicting, but the consolation with which they are attended, ought to moderate your grief."—Gil Blas, Vol. ii, p. 20. "Between these two cases there are great odds."—Hooker. "Where the odds is considerable."—Campbell. "Determining on which side the odds lie."—Locke. "The greater are the odds that he mistakes his author."—Johnson's Gram. Com., p. 1. "Though thus an odds unequally they meet."—Rowe's Lucan, B. iv, l. 789. "Preëminent by so much odds."—Milton. "To make a shambles of the parliament house."—Shak. "The earth has been, from the beginning, a great Aceldama, a shambles of blood."—Christian's Vade-Mecum, p. 6. "A shambles" sounds so inconsistent, I should rather say, "A shamble." Johnson says, the etymology of the word is uncertain; Webster refers it to the Saxon scamel: it means a butcher's stall, a meat-market; and there would seem to be no good reason for the s, unless more than one such place is intended. "Who sells his subjects to the shambles of a foreign power."—Pitt. "A special idea is called by the schools a species."—Watts. "He intendeth the care of species, or common natures."—Brown. "ALOE, (al~o) n.; plu. ALOES."—Webster's Dict., and Worcester's. "But it was aloe itself to lose the reward."— Tupper's Crock of Gold, p. 16.

   "But high in amphitheatre above,
    His arms the everlasting aloes threw."
        —Campbell, G. of W., ii, 10.

OBS. 33.—There are some nouns, which, though really regular in respect to possessing the two forms for the two numbers, are not free from irregularity in the manner of their application. Thus means is the regular plural of mean; and, when the word is put for mediocrity, middle point, place, or degree, it takes both forms, each in its proper sense; but when it signifies things instrumental, or that which is used to effect an object, most writers use means for the singular as well as for the plural:[156] as, "By this means"—"By those means," with reference to one mediating cause; and, "By these means,"—"By those means," with reference to more than one. Dr. Johnson says the use of means for mean is not very grammatical; and, among his examples for the true use of the word, he has the following: "Pamela's noble heart would needs gratefully make known the valiant mean of her safety."—Sidney. "Their virtuous conversation was a mean to work the heathens' conversion."—Hooker. "Whether his wits should by that mean have been taken from him."—Id. "I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor out of the way."—Shak. "No place will please me so, no mean of death."—Id. "Nature is made better by no mean, but nature makes that mean."—Id. Dr. Lowth also questioned the propriety of construing means as singular, and referred to these same authors as authorities for preferring the regular form. Buchanan insists that means is right in the plural only; and that, "The singular should be used as perfectly analogous; by this mean, by that mean."—English Syntax, p. 103. Lord Kames, likewise, appears by his practice to have been of the same opinion: "Of this the child must be sensible intuitively, for it has no other mean of knowledge."—Elements of Criticism, Vol. i, p. 357. "And in both the same mean is employed."—Ib. ii, 271. Caleb Alexander, too, declares "this means," "that means." and "a means," to be "ungrammatical."—Gram., p. 58. But common usage has gone against the suggestions of these critics, and later grammarians have rather confirmed the irregularity, than attempted to reform it.

OBS. 34.—Murray quotes sixteen good authorities to prove that means may be singular; but whether it ought to be so or not, is still a disputable point. Principle is for the regular word mean, and good practice favours the irregularity, but is still divided. Cobbett, to the disgrace of grammar, says, "Mean, as a noun, is never used in the singular. It, like some other words, has broken loose from all principle and rule. By universal consent, it is become always a plural, whether used with singular or plural pronouns and articles, or not."—E. Gram., p. 144. This is as ungrammatical, as it is untrue. Both mean and means are sufficiently authorized in the singular: "The prospect which by this mean is opened to you."—Melmoth's Cicero. "Faith in this doctrine never terminates in itself, but is a mean, to holiness as an end."—Dr. Chalmers, Sermons, p. v. "The mean of basely affronting him."—Brown's Divinity, p. 19. "They used every mean to prevent the re-establishment of their religion."—Dr Jamieson's Sacred Hist., i, p. 20. "As a necessary mean to prepare men for the discharge of that duty."— Bolingbroke, on Hist., p. 153. "Greatest is the power of a mean, when its power is least suspected."—Tupper's Book of Thoughts, p. 37. "To the deliberative orator the reputation of unsullied virtue is not only useful, as a mean of promoting his general influence, it is also among his most efficient engines of persuasion, upon every individual occasion."—J. Q. Adams's Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, i, 352. "I would urge it upon you, as the most effectual mean of extending your respectability and usefulness in the world."—Ib., ii, 395. "Exercise will be admitted to be a necessary mean of improvement."—Blair's Rhet., p. 343. "And by that means we have now an early prepossession in their favour."—Ib., p. 348. "To abolish all sacrifice by revealing a better mean of reconciliation." —Keith's Evidences, p. 46. "As a mean of destroying the distinction." —Ib., p. 3. "Which however is by no mean universally the case."— Religious World Displayed, Vol. iii, p. 155.

OBS. 35.—Again, there are some nouns, which, though they do not lack the regular plural form, are sometimes used in a plural sense without the plural termination. Thus manner makes the plural manners, which last is now generally used in the peculiar sense of behaviour, or deportment, but not always: it sometimes means methods, modes, or ways; as, "At sundry times and in divers manners."—Heb., i, 1. "In the manners above mentioned."—Butler's Analogy, p. 100. "There be three manners of trials in England."—COWELL: Joh. Dict., w. Jury. "These two manners of representation."—Lowth's Gram., p. 15. "These are the three primary modes, or manners, of expression."—Lowth's Gram., p. 83. "In arrangement, too, various manners suit various styles."—Campbell's Phil. of Rhet., p. 172. "Between the two manners."—Bolingbroke, on Hist., p. 35. "Here are three different manners of asserting."— Barnard's Gram., p. 59. But manner has often been put for sorts, without the s; as, "The tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits."—Rev., xxii, 2. "All manner of men assembled here in arms."—Shak. "All manner of outward advantages."—Atterbury. Milton used kind in the same way, but not very properly; as, "All kind of living creatures."—P. Lost, B. iv, l. 286. This irregularity it would be well to avoid. Manners may still, perhaps, be proper for modes or ways; and all manner, if allowed, must be taken in the sense of a collective noun; but for sorts, kinds, classes, or species, I would use neither the plural nor the singular of this word. The word heathen, too, makes the regular plural heathens, and yet is often used in a plural sense without the s; as, "Why do the heathen rage?"—Psalms, ii, 1. "Christianity was formerly propagated among the heathens."—Murray's Key, 8vo, p. 217. The word youth, likewise, has the same peculiarities.

OBS. 36.—Under the present head come names of fishes, birds, or other things, when the application of the singular is extended from the individual to the species, so as to supersede the plural by assuming its construction: as, Sing. "A great fish."—Jonah, i, 17. Plur. "For the multitude of fishes'."—John, xxi, 6. "A very great multitude of fish."—Ezekiel, xlvii, 9.[157] The name of the genus being liable to this last construction, men seem to have thought that the species should follow; consequently, the regular plurals of some very common names of fishes are scarcely known at all. Hence some grammarians affirm, that salmon, mackerel, herring, perch, tench, and several others, are alike in both numbers, and ought never to be used in the plural form. I am not so fond of honouring these anomalies. Usage is here as unsettled, as it is arbitrary; and, if the expression of plurality is to be limited to either form exclusively, the regular plural ought certainly to be preferred. But, for fish taken in bulk, the singular form seems more appropriate; as, "These vessels take from thirty-eight to forty-five quintals of cod and pollock, and six thousand barrels of mackerel, yearly."—Balbi's Geog., p. 28.

OBS. 37.—The following examples will illustrate the unsettled usage just mentioned, and from them the reader may judge for himself what is right. In quoting, at second-hand, I generally think it proper to make double references; and especially in citing authorities after Johnson, because he so often gives the same passages variously. But he himself is reckoned good authority in things literary. Be it so. I regret the many proofs of his fallibility. "Hear you this Triton of the minnows?"—Shak. "The shoal of herrings was of an immense extent."—Murray's Key, p. 185. "Buy my herring fresh."—SWIFT: in Joh. Dict. "In the fisheries of Maine, cod, herring, mackerel alewives, salmon, and other fish, are taken."—Balbi's Geog., p. 23. "MEASE, n. The quantity of 500; as, a mease of herrings."—Webster's Dict. "We shall have plenty of mackerel this season."—ADDISON: in Joh. Dict. "Mackarel is the same in both numbers. Gay has improperly mackarels."—Churchill's Gram., p. 208. "They take salmon and trouts by groping and tickling them under the bellies."—CAREW: in Joh. Dict. "The pond will keep trout and salmon in their seasonable plight."—Id., ib., w. Trout. "Some fish are preserved fresh in vinegar, as turbot."—Id., ib., w. Turbot. "Some fish are boiled and preserved fresh in vinegar, as tunny and turbot."—Id., ib., w. Tunny. "Of round fish, there are brit, sprat, barn, smelts."—Id., ib., w. Smelt. "For sprats and spurlings for your house."—TUSSEE: ib., w. Spurling. "The coast is plentifully stored with pilchards, herrings, and haddock."—CAREW: ib., w. Haddock. "The coast is plentifully stored with round fish, pilchard, herring, mackerel, and cod"—Id., ib., w. Herring. "The coast is plentifully stored with shellfish, sea-hedgehogs, scallops, pilcherd, herring, and pollock."—Id., ib., w. Pollock. "A roach is a fish