alytical practical grammar - Toronto Public Library

30 ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
shambled, tidings, thanks, vespers, vitals, victuals; Also, thiugs consisting
of two part,; as, bellows, drawers, hose, nippers, pincers, pliers, snuffers,
3cissors, "henTS, tongs, &c.
A few wonls usually plural, viz., bowels, embers, entrat/s, lungs, have
sometimes a singular, denotin:; a part or portion of that expressed by the
plural; as, bowel, lung, &c.
157. Some nouns are alike in both Ilumber.; as, deer, sheep, swine,
vel'min; grouse, salmon, tench, trout; apparutu~, hiatus, series, (o?!geries,
species, superficies; head (in the sense of individual), cattle; certain build.
ing materials; as, brick, stone, plank, joist, in mass; olso fish, and sometimes
jowl, denoting the da's. But several of the-e, iu a plural sense,
denoting individuals have the re:;lIlar plural also; ns, salmons, trouts,
.fishes, fowls, &c.
158. The words brace, couple, pair, yoke, dozen, score, gross, hundred,
thousand, nnd some oll,,'r?, "fter a,ljecth-es of number, are either singular
or plural; as, a brace, a· dozen, a hundred; two brace, three dozen, six hundred,
&c. But without an adjective of Dumber, or in other constructions,
and particularly after in, by, &c., in a distributive sense, most of these
words, in the plural, assume a plural form; as, "In braces and dozens."­
"B_v scores and hunJrc./s."-" 'Vorth thousands."
159. 1. The following words, plural in form, are sometimes .ingular,
but most commonly plural in signification, viz.: amends, means, richel,
pains (meauing laborious cffort), odds, alms, wage .. ; and the names of eert
.in scien('e~; a~, mathematics, ethics, optics, acouslia, metaphYSiCS, politics,
pneumatics, hydrostatics, &c.
2. jJleans and amends, referriug to one object, are sillgular; to more than
one, plural. Mean, in the singular form, is now used to signify the middle
between two extremes. .I11ms (lElmesse, Anglo-Saxon) and riches (richesse,
Frenc!!), are really singular, though now used commonly in a plural sense.
Neu:s, formerly singular or plural, is now mostly sillgular. Molasses and
measles, though ending like ~ plmnl, are singular, and so used. Oats is
generally plmal; gallows is both singular nnd plurnl, though a distinct
plural form, gallowses, is also iu use.
160. The following nrc singular in form, but in construction various;
thu~, foot and horse, meaning bodies of troops, and people, meaning persons,
are always construed as plural; cannon, shot, sail, cavalry, infantry,
8S singular or plural. People (also folk), when it signifies a community
or body of persolls, is a collective Iloun in the singular, and sometimes,
though rarely, tnkes a plural form; us, "Many peoples and nations."
Rev. x. 11.