Question:
It seems to me that many nouns in English appear in plurals only and are not
countable. Nouns such as "manners", "odds", "riches" are treated as plurals,
i.e, they use plural verbs, and, as far as my limited scope of reading is
concerned, they don't seem to be countable, i.e, no one seem to ever say
"two manners", "two odds", "two riches" etc.,
What often makes me feel like a fool is: lots of English nouns are marked in
dictionaries (Longman, Collins Cobuild Dictionaries) and grammar books as
[P], which means "always used as plurals", for example, "credentials",
"clothes", "dregs" but I've seen these nouns used as countables, "two
credentials", "two clothes", "a few dregs"...etc.,
Now, if these nouns can have quantitatives such as two, three, four, and "a
few" etc., in front of them, logically, it should also be possible to place
"a, an" and "one " in front of them. But it nevertheless sound absurd to me
to say "a clothes", "a dregs" "a credentials" (or can I just say "a dreg",
"a credential", such as "The man didn't presented a verifiable
credential."?)
And as dictionaries define "archives" as "a place storing historical
materials...", can I say "an archive" and "two archives"? And what about
"waters" "outskirts"?
What's the hell with English nouns? They are drving me nuts (singular or
plural?)!
Answer:
Manners and odds can be singular nouns and can be countable, but I don't believe
that rich can ever be "a rich" -- at least not in idiomatic English.
Credentials is of course always a plural, but it is perfectly normal AmE to use
it as a singular, e.g., "I have a lifetime teaching credential for the
California Community College system". Most of the time -- in my remembrance of
things past -- people say "credentials", as in, "What are your credentials?" It
is possible to have "two credentials", e.g., one for K-12 and one for community
college. "Clothes", however, is just like "furniture": you can have lots of
clothes and furniture, but you cannot have one or two or either one. "dregs"
can be singular: "2 : the poorest or most undesirable part of anything --
usually used in plural " [MW3rdIUD]
It seems as if you can say "a dreg is left over from last night's party", but
you cannot put "a" in front of any of these words when they are plural.
Yes, there is, e.g., the Bettman (sp?) Archive, and "an outskirt" (" a part
remote from the center : BORDER, FRINGE " MW3rdIUD). You can also say "I'll have a water and a beer" in standard
idiomatic English.
"nuts" is an adjective here, not a noun, so it's neither singular nor plural; it
can be plural when used as a noun, though. It means "crazy" or "nutty".
Don't think too hard about all the nuttiness in English grammar. Just read a lot
more English and pay close attention to how words are used by good writers of
the language. Then you will learn all you need to know about English grammar.
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