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Monthly Archives: December 2009

Nouns That Can Only Be Plural

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The idea for this list is courtesy of the inestimable Billy Frolick.
Some nouns in English are always plural.  Can we add to this list?
pants (also slacks, trousers, pantaloons, shorts, etc.)
scissors
pliers
pajamas
The standard explanation for this phenomenon is that these are things that essentially have two parts.  Yet we talk intelligibly about the buttock.  (Too intelligibly, some [...]

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The Lifted Brow

Monday, December 7, 2009

is an Australian “attack journal,” and its No. 6 edition is available for pre-order.  (They are printing to order: the more orders, the more copies.) No. 6 is their World Atlas edition, made up of one book and 2 CDs, and featuring writing by, among others, Rick Moody, David Foster Wallace, me, and Thomas Benjamin [...]

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