Nouns Lacking Plural or Singular Form
Certain nouns do not form plurals. A large class of such nouns in many languages is that of uncountable nouns, representing mass or abstract concepts such as air, information, physics. However many nouns of this type also have countable meanings or other contexts in which a plural can be used; for example water can take a plural when it means water from a particular source (different waters make for different beers) and in expressions like by the waters of Babylon.
There are also nouns found exclusively or almost exclusively in the plural, such as the English scissors. There are referred to with the term plurale tantum.
Read more about this topic: Plural
Famous quotes containing the words nouns, lacking, singular and/or form:
“Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The arrogance that accompanies merit offends us even more than the arrogance of people who are lacking in merit: since merit itself offends us.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Singularity is only pardonable in old age and retirement; I may now be as singular as I please, but you may not.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation, namely an imitation of its opposite.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)