In the same way, words that describe a pair (two parts) are only used in the plural:.“ Wages have increased during the last few years.”.Some examples of nouns that only exist in the plural:.Compare some respective nouns and their usage accordingly:

However, some exceptional nouns belonging to this group have a singular form, which differs in its meaning. In consequence, these do not have a singular form and are called pluralia tantum (singular: plurale tantum) in professional jargon. In the English language, there are some nouns that exist only in the plural. Today many rural and foreign speakers still don't think of children as plural, and have added a third suffix, yielding the triply plural childrens.What nouns can only be used in the plural (explanation)? But people stopped hearing it as a plural, and when they had to refer to more than one child, they added a second plural marker, -en. Once it was childer, with the old plural suffix -er also seen in the German equivalent Kinder. Nonstandard dialects are filled with double plurals such as oxens, dices, lices, and feets, and that is how we got the strangest plural in Standard English, children. This is happening today to the noun data, which often refers to large quantities of information and which is easily conceived of as stuff rather than things the word is turning from a plural ( many data) to a mass noun ( much data).

The linguist Peter Tiersma has found that whenever a set of objects can easily be construed as a single assemblage, a regular plural is in danger of congealing into a mass noun or an irregular plural. 'In his song One Hippopotami, the comedian Alan Sherman sang, 'The plural of 'half' is 'whole' the plural of 'two minks' is 'one mink stole.'' It is an astute observation.

What are plural