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:
“All the facts of nature are nouns of the intellect, and make the grammar of the eternal language. Every word has a double, treble or centuple use and meaning.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Feeling needy—mistaking vulnerability for weakness—doesn’t fit in with our image of what being a mother is all about. If we are needy, how can we care well for a much needier baby? There is a widespread feeling that we have to do it all alone, and if we don’t know something, or can’t manage it, or, heaven forbid, don’t want to, there is something lacking in our makeup.”
—Sally Placksin (20th century)
“And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist—
I don’t think she’d be missed—I’m sure she’d not be
missed!”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s form of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)