It’s called a plurale tantum or “plural-only noun”.
Flemmy@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
A pair of scissors. Is this an English grammar rule when 2 parts are connected to function as one it’s still a pair.?
xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Is this an English grammar rule
English grammar and spelling rules were made up on the fly by Dutch workers with a tenable grasp on the language themselves.
They just operated the first English printing presses and the owner valued quantity over quality. So they just did fucking whatever.
vk6flab@lemmy.radio 3 weeks ago
Source?
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It was William Caxton about 600 years ago who owned it.
Everything I found just now talks about how great a historical figure he was.
But if you dig deeper you should be able to find reference to the Dutch workers he brought with the press who knew how to use it and actually set the type on the presses.
I don’t have the time at the moment, but if you’re interested then that’s enough to start researching
GandalftheBlack@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
I’d say it’s less of a grammar rule and more about how things made up of two similar parts can be conceptualised