Comment on We refer to jeans as "a pair of jeans", but the only thing that there are two of is the legs, it's still only one item of clothing.

Flemmy@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It’s called a plurale tantum or “plural-only noun”.

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• givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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.

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  • vk6flab@lemmy.radio ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Source?

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    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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

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• GandalftheBlack@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ 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

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