"Plural" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Eccles., i, 2. The word Vanity (remarks Hurwitz, the translator) occurs twice in the plural, which the Rabbi considered as equivalent to four, and three times in the singular, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... to level on the property of the former [common error or variant for "levy"] this measure, once adopted, her father must consent also [sentence structure is the same in all editions] constructed of several tier of hewed timbers ["tier" used as a plural] he should conduct in a very different manner [sentence structure is the same in ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... to advise thee (The courteous use of the plural was proscribed at Paris. The Societies Populaires had decided that whoever used it should be prosecuted as suspect et adulateur! At the door of the public administrations and popular societies was written up, "Ici on s'honore du Citoyen, et on se tutoye"!!! ("Here they respect the title of Citizen, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... it kindly," laughed Phillips. "He is offering me an excuse to surrender gracefully. We must have a public meeting or two after Christmas, and clear the ground." They had got into the habit of speaking in the plural. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... begins with a striking picture. A fair and queenly woman stands in the crowded resorts of men, and lifts up a voice of sweet entreaty—authoritative as well as sweet. Her name is Wisdom. The word is in the plural in the Hebrew, as if to teach that in this serene and lovely form all manifold wisdoms are gathered and made one. Who then is she? It is easy to say 'a poetical personification,' but that does not add much to our ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 96: Chap. IV. nomenclature.] All parts of speech appear to be subject to inflections, if we except adverbs, post-fixes, and post-positions. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs have all three numbers, singular, dual and plural. The nominative agent always precedes an active verb. When any new object is presented to the native, a name is given to it, from some fancied similarity to some object they already know, or from some peculiar ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... secret sorrows—especially about there being no work nowadays for an honest man. At last he dropped asleep in the middle of a story about a vestry he worked for that hadn't acted fair and square by him like he had by them, or it (I don't know if vestry is singular or plural), and we went home. But before we went we held a hurried council and collected what money we could from the little we had with us (it was ninepence-halfpenny), and wrapped it in an old envelope Dicky had in his pocket and put it gently on the billowing middle ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... [*—"Makosi", the plural of "Inkoosi", is the salute given to Zulu wizards, because they are not one but many, since in them (as in the possessed demoniac in the Bible) dwell ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... plural form. deux mille 2000; deux milles means two miles. Mil is used in Christian era, l'an Mil huit ...
— The Aural System • Anonymous
... landings, the officers might have been able to say at what hour we should reach our destination. As it was, they merely reiterated the characteristic "Ne znaem" (We don't know), which possesses plural powers of irritation when uttered in the conventional half-drawl. Perhaps they really did not know. Owing to a recent decree in the imperial navy, officers who have served a certain number of years without having accomplished a stipulated amount of sea service are retired. Since the Russian war vessels ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... of the fourth scholarship, but I may have betrayed my surprise at the plural pronoun, for the blood rose under Ned's sensitive skin, and he said with an embarrassed laugh: "Ah, she so completely makes me forget that it's ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... Sacred Writings, or else they refer to them under the names that were given to specific parts of them, as the Law, the Prophets, or the Psalms. Our word Bible comes from a word which began to be applied to the sacred writings as a whole about four hundred years after Christ. It is a Greek plural noun, meaning the books, or the little books. These writings were called by this plural name for about eight hundred years; it was not till the thirteenth century that they began to be familiarly spoken of as a single book. This fact, of itself, is instructive. For though ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... the collar, O' Man," Parsons would say. There is no satisfactory plural to O' Man, so he always used ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... has been necessary to say in order to account for existing attitudes. We must use the plural, since the attitude of the state officials is but one of several, and, inasmuch as the state officials themselves were not a theological caste but only secular servants of the community administering the regulations for external worship as laid down in the records, it often happened ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... p. 302, who charges his sons "to worship the seed of Judah, who should die for them in visible and invisible wars; and should be among them an eternal king." Nor is that observation of a learned foreigner of my acquaintance to be despised, who takes notice, that as seeds in the plural, must signify posterity, so seed in the singular may signify either posterity, or a single person; and that in this promise of all nations being happy in the seed of Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, etc., it is always used in the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... which the mind at one end, and the reality at the other, are joined. The 'satisfaction,' in turn, is no abstract satisfaction ueberhaupt, felt by an unspecified being, but is assumed to consist of such satisfactions (in the plural) as concretely existing men actually do find in their beliefs. As we humans are constituted in point of fact, we find that to believe in other men's minds, in independent physical realities, in past events, ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... continued, diminished gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' That the respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only clear by the subsequent context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: 'In less than half a minute, the respiration [being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually, and were succeeded by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' A hundred similar instances go to show that the MS. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... his return to Florence he became Secretary of the Commune, and he was the master of Dante and Guido Cavalcanti. His principal literary work was Li Livres dou Tresor, written in French, an interesting compend of the omne scibile. He died in 1290. Dante uses the plural "you" in addressing him, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... pronominal adjective) is "cxiu", each (one), every (one). Sometimes it is equivalent to English "any", as in "Any one who studies can learn," etc. The plural is "cxiuj", every, all. The article is never interposed between "cxiuj" and the noun modified (as in English "all the men"), and is used only if "cxiuj" is pronominal and followed ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... assembled a great concourse of warriors. Inside I could see the heads of women and children peering over the top of the wall; and also, farther back, the long necks of lidi, topped by their tiny heads. Lidi, by the way, is both the singular and plural form of the noun that describes the huge beasts of burden of the Thurians. They are enormous quadrupeds, eighty or a hundred feet long, with very small heads perched at the top of very long, slender necks. Their heads are ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... contains the five Roundles of the Colours, which are globular, and are usually shaded accordingly. The Torteau, No. 152, in the plural Torteaux, is gules: the Hurt is azure: the Pellet or Ogress is sable: the Pomme is vert: and the Golpe is purpure. These distinctive titles, which are more calculated to perplex the student than to simplify his study, are of comparatively ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... Seraphim." The Bible tells us that the name of one of the Archangels is Michael; Gabriel is also probably of this order, and Raphael. The Cherubim (the derivation of this word is uncertain) are frequently spoken of in the Bible: Gen. iii.24; Exodus xxv.19, 20; Ezekiel i.10; Rev. iv.6. The Seraphim, (plural of Seraph, a Hebrew word, meaning fiery, or burning) are possibly referred to in Psalm civ.4, "He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... remarked: "Some think our God is the Sun." There were excuses perhaps for those that did. Adonai, a Hebrew term for the Almighty, is a plural. It means lords. But the lords indicated were Baalim who were Lords of the Sun. Moreover, when the early Christians prayed, they turned to the East. Their holy day was, as the holy day of Christendom still is, Sunday, day of the Sun, an expression that comes ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... Burton generally writes Bedawi and Bedawin. Bedawin (Bedouin) is the plural form of Bedawi. Pilgrimage to Meccah, vol. ii., ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... and ministry are expressed abstractly, whether prophecy, (not, whether we are prophets;) whether ministry, (not, whether we are deacons, ministers:) and both prophecy and ministry are put in the accusative case; and both of them have relation, and are joined unto the participle of the plural number having, intimating that divers do share in prophecy, pastor and teacher; divers in ministry, deacon and ruling elder. But all the other are expressed concretely, and in the nominative case, and in the singular ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... we had really got near the weeding-out point, especially when Jesse Willows rose and added fleez. "Plural of dogbiters," he explained, and sat down quietly. At this Miss Appleby gave one brief, happy laugh, but at once resumed a singular tapping of her foot which I had begun to observe. We now thoroughly phoneticked many words: blud, for instance, and wunss (which is so much phoneticker than ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... fool. Hemca is the feminine form of ahmec, fool. If by a change in the (unwritten) vowels, we read Humeca, which is the plural form of ahmec, the title will signify, "Gift (Tuhfeh) of fools" and would thus represent a jesting alteration of the girl's real name (Tuhfet el Culoub, Gift of hearts), in allusion to her (from the slave-merchant's point of view) ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... the post of Company Interpreter lie in the fact that I once, in company of various other youths of my age, spent a fortnight in and around the Casino at Trouville. Peters of our company knows a long list of nouns taking "x" instead of "s" in the plural, but my knowledge is considered ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... It was hot; there was a chest beneath him which had suddenly developed a hard edge and an awkward corner; the dogs, too, were uneasy, and barked a good deal at the moon. Then some kind of animal in the plural number seemed to be holding a meeting up among the branches of the huge tree under which they encamped, for there were endless squealings and skirmishes about, which woke the boy again and again, ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... more allowable through the covert of folly? For us also makes that mystical Psalmist, though I remembered it not in its right place, "Remember not the sins of my youth nor my ignorances." You see what two things he pretends, to wit, youth, whose companion I ever am, and ignorances, and that in the plural number, a number of multitude, whereby we are to understand that there was no small company ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... 18 districts (dzongkhag, singular and plural); Bumthang, Chhukha, Chirang, Dagana, Geylegphug, Ha, Lhuntshi, Mongar, Paro, Pemagatsel, Punakha, Samchi, Samdrup Jongkhar, Shemgang, Tashigang, Thimphu, Tongsa, Wangdi Phodrang note: there may be two new districts named Gasa ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... justified the Ullathorne people in their severity. He loved to consort with low people. He not only drank—that might have been forgiven—but he drank in tap-rooms with vulgar drinkers; so said his friends, and so said his enemies. He denied the charge as being made in the plural number, and declared that his only low co-reveller was Roger Scatcherd. With Roger Scatcherd, at any rate, he associated, and became as democratic as Roger was himself. Now the Thornes of Ullathorne were of the very highest ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... more detailed consideration. It is because of these germ truths enshrined in the ancient myths that so many bygone modes of thought and expression last on into the new order. Ruskin, in genuine mythological style, often used the term "gods," and explains his meaning thus: "By gods, in the plural, I mean the totality of spiritual powers delegated by the Lord of the universe to do in their several heights, or offices, parts of His will respecting man, or the world that man is imprisoned in; not as myself knowing, or ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... peculiar fashion; her most common method of amusement being to reproduce for its entertainment scraps of conversation current in the house, with all the sense left out of them, and all the nouns changed to the plural number, as—"Did its mothers make it up a beds then! And did its hair grow brown and curly when its cap was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... were good and said: Make we man unto our similitude and image. Here spake the Father to the Son and Holy Ghost, or else as it were the common voice of three persons, when it was said make we, and to our, in plural number. Man was made to the image of God in his soul. Here it is to be noted that he made not only the soul with the body, but he made both body and soul. As to the body he made male and female. God gave to man the lordship and power ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... than one.] Plurality. — N. plurality; a number, a certain number; one or two, two or three &c.; a few, several; multitude &c. 102; majority. [large number] multitude &c. 102. Adj. plural, more than one, upwards of; some, several, a few; certain; not alone &c. 87. Adv. et cetera, &c., etc. among other things, inter alia[Lat]. Phr. non ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Shakespeare's Versification, p. 243 sqq. 'The plurals of substantives ending in s, in certain instances, in se, ss, ce, and sometimes ge, ... are found without the usual addition of s or es, in pronunciation at least, although in many instances the plural affix is added in printing, where the metre shows that it ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... refers to Dozy s.v. "Jaftah." [The Turkish word referred to by Dozy is "Chifte" from the Persian "Juft" a pair, any two things coupled together. "Masha'iliyah jaftawat wa fanusin" in the text would therefore be "(cresset-) bearers of double torches and lanterns," where the plural fanusin is remarkable as a vulgarism, instead ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... raise this question,' he says, talking as he does sometimes in the historical plural of his philosophic chair,—'this question, rather than objection,'—[it was much to be preferred in that form certainly]—'whether we talk of perfecting NATURAL PHILOSOPHY alone, according to our method, or the other sciences such as—ETHICS, LOGIC, POLITICS.' A pretty question ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... play—I mean it is most pleasant there, hot afternoons. Did you use to dote on horse-chestnuts? Queer boys should. But I rather like them myself, in a way,—out of the way! We have picked up a hundred and seventeen." Miss Salome dropped into the plural number innocently, and Elizabeth laughed over John's shoulder. Elizabeth did the reading between the lines. John was ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... to Richards, and Dr. Owen Pughe, is a Fairy, a goblin, etc. The plural of Gwyll would be Gwylliaid, or Gwyllion, but this latter word Dr. Pughe defines as ghosts, hobgoblins, etc. Formerly, there was in Merionethshire a red haired family of robbers called Y Gwylliaid Cochion, or Red Fairies, of whom I shall ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... of failures. When one has a great deal more to say than one has any right to say, and when at the same time one is expected to say particularly little, it is very hard to write a good note. All sorts of ideas creep in and express themselves automatically. A misplaced plural for a singular, a superlative adjective where the vaguer comparative belongs; the vast and immeasurable waste of weary years that may lie between "dear" and "dearest," the gulf placed between "sincerely yours, John Smith," and "yours, J.S.," and "your J.," ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the atmosphere. bawled, cried out. ere, before. bad, ill; vicious. e'er, ever. bade, past tense of bid. heir, one who inherits. baize, a kind of cloth. aisle, walk in a church. bays, plural of bay. isle, an island. bear, an animal. I'll, I will. bare, naked. cere, to cover with wax. bay, part of the ocean. sear, to burn; dry. bey, a Turkish officer. seer, a prophet. be, to exist. ball, a round body. bee, an insect. bawl, to ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... Who is the pilot of the cloud? Where does he sit? What lures the pilot? Who are the "genii"? (A genius—plural, genii—is a good or evil spirit which was supposed by the ancients to guard a man and control his destinies. In a sense the spirit of the waters may be said to control the lightning.) Who move "in the depths of the purple sea"? (The word "dream" would be written "dreams" in prose. The two lines ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... whether along, over, or under the same, in a manner not permitted to the general public; the term "person," as used in this article, shall include individuals, partnerships and corporations, in the singular as well as plural number; the term "bond" shall mean all certificates, or written evidences, of indebtedness issued by any corporation and secured by mortgage or trust deed; the term "frank" shall be construed to mean any writing or token, issued by, or under authority of, a transmission ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... have been remembered, when every people, as has been remarked above, naturally gave him its own name. Of these names many show by their very nature that they could not have belonged to individuals. Some are plural, like MIZRAIM, "the Egyptians;" some have the article: "the AMORITE, the HIVITE;" one even is the name of a city: SIDON is called "the first-born of Canaan;" now Sidon was long the greatest maritime city of the Canaanites, who held an undisputed supremacy over the rest, and ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... somewhat disappointing to find that the plural was merely a bit of verbal embroidery on the caretaking butler's part, and that there was but one kitchen, situated in the basement. However, it was of good size and well furnished with closets, the contents of which stirred Serena's housekeeping curiosity. ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... always contrasts with spirit; so to confound the two is to ignore a distinction upon which everything depends in any, except the materialistic, philosophy. When the term substance is used in the currency of the term matter it admits of the plural form as well as the singular. Indeed, all the primordial elements known in chemistry are known as so many different substances. It is unscientific and absurd to confound all these elements by claiming the one-substance theory. It has been called "the hog philosophy," on account of its swallowing ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... when we had taught him to speak a little English, that they were going with their kings to fight a great battle. When he said kings, we asked him how many kings? He said they were five nation (we could not make him understand the plural 's), and that they all joined to go against two nation. We asked him what made them come up to us? He said, "To makee te great wonder look." Here it is to be observed that all those natives, as also those of Africa when ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... much to the surprise of his hearers. He had not the slightest notion what a lacuna, or its plural, signified. He was only adopting Furneaux's advice, ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... I get there," answered Margraf, who, be it observed, did not encourage the first person plural. First person singular was a good deal more in his line. Yet he loved his chum, too, in his own way; but it ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Italian for master. It is a title of courtesy, and conveys reverence and admiration.) "Pollo is one chicken by itself; when there are enough present to constitute a plural, it is POLLI." ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... note of special interest in their language. All the nouns have a masculine and a feminine gender, and the feminine nouns immensely predominate. The sun is feminine, the moon masculine. In the pronouns there is one form only in the plural, and that is feminine. It may seem that these matters—noted so briefly—are unimportant; but it is such little things that deserve attentive study. At least they serve to show that the Khasis have reached a high level of primitive culture; and they ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... now furnished me I am satisfied that the members and adherents of said church generally abstain from plural marriages and polygamous cohabitation and are now living in obedience to the laws, and that the time has now arrived when the interests of public justice and morality will be promoted by the granting of amnesty and pardon to all such offenders as have complied with the ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... Graeme, and that was "The Ladies—the Guests of the Evening"; and that he drank right heartily, with his eyes on Miss Brandt's sparkling face, and if it had been left to himself he would have converted it from plural to singular and drunk to ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... for the plural number, and she was a woman whom it took many plurals to disconcert. "I'm sure Guy is longing for another dance with you," she rejoined, with ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... life for them in a rough world, sustained by an abiding vision of noble womanhood and the sanctity of home. It is an extraordinarily appealing phrase and Lady Moyne used it for all it was worth. As addressed by her to wives and sisters of the Belfast working-men, it had a further value. The plural possessive pronoun bracketed McConkey with Lord Moyne. McConkey's wife, assuming for the moment that he had not abstained from matrimony as he had from tobacco, shared his joys and sorrows, his hopes and fears, heartened him for his daily toil, would join no doubt in polishing the muzzle of the ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... "I would rather talk of my wife's interest in the mills than of her interests there; but we'll keep to the plural if you prefer it. Personally, I believe the terms should be interchangeable in the conduct ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... put it to the proof. Since the French have no first person singular imperative, they are forced to use either the plural, ...
— Bataille De Dames • Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve
... nothing—that I was a strangers" (ich bin ein Fremden), and had come out to see the effects on the river, pointing to the glimmering lights; but, fortunately, my German was so funny that he burst out laughing, and after a "sehr schoen, sehr schoen," as I had said "strangers" in the plural, he replied, "When you are a strangers you must stay in the house," and gave me friendly directions as to how to get back to my hotel without falling in with the police, "who wouldn't let you off as I have." I was fortunate enough to arrive without ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... [12] "Makama (plural, Makamat), the Arabic word for a place where people congregate to discuss public affairs, came to be used as the name of a form of poetry midway between the epic and the drama." (Karpeles, Geschichte ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... of ancient towns and villages are usually conspicuous in Palestine, and are recognized in the local nomenclature. They are denoted by the words tall, plural tulul, meaning 'mound', and khirbah, plural khirab meaning 'ruin'. These words are commonly spelt in English tell and khirbet (less correctly khurbet) and we use these more familiar forms here. As a rule, though not invariably, the sense ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... I will tell your coachman." And in very civil fashion Manilov did so, even going so far as to address the man in the second person plural. On hearing that he was to pass two turnings, and then to take a third, Selifan remarked, "We shall get there all right, sir," and Chichikov departed amid a profound salvo of salutations and wavings of handkerchiefs on the part of his host and hostess, who raised themselves ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... to make thee less happy than thou hast been with those others," said he softly in Italian, and using the form of address, which, in almost every language but the English, marks a different and more tender relation from that indicated by the more formal plural pronoun. ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... cleves is the plural number of Cleve, a cliff. It is so used by Chaucer. I cannot believe that it was ever used as a ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... think can properly pass but for one of the "some." And, though I dare not pretend to guess the author's meaning; yet the expression allows such a latitude, that I would venture to hold a wager, most readers, both Whig and Tory, have agreed with me, that this plural number must, in all probability, among other facts, take in the business ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... "climate" in the plural when writing of so large a state as California and one so wonderfully endowed with conditions which make health, comfort and beauty in all seasons. Its great length of coast-line and its mountain ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... (Cyrus) is the title of several ancient kings of Persia, and is here used in the plural to denote monarchs in general. The term "kiblah," fronting-point, signifies the object towards which the worshipper ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... every reader. "Poets? where are they?" Wordsworth is said, on the authority of De Quincey, to have asked, with a want of graciousness of manners uncommon even in him and never forgiven by Hogg, when the latter used the plural in his presence, and in that of Wilson and Lloyd. It was unjust as well as rude, but endless allowance certainly has to be made for Hogg as a poet. I do not know to whom the epigram that "everything that is written in Scotch dialect is not necessarily ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... of naming tumors is quite simple. The Greek word "oma" (plural "omata") means tumor. This word "oma" is added to the stem of the word ordinarily used to designate the kind of tissue of which the tumor is composed. Thus a tumor formed after the type of fibrous tissue is a fibroma. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... newspapers. When the opera was brought out in the vernacular, Mr. Frederick E. Weatherly, who made the English adaptation, called the play and the character assumed by Canio in the comedy "Punchinello." This evoked an interesting comment from Mr. Hale: "'Pagliacci' is the plural of Pagliaccio, which does not mean and never did mean Punchinello. What is a Pagliaccio? A type long known to the Italians, and familiar to the French as Paillasse. The Pagliaccio visited Paris first in 1570. He was clothed in white and wore big buttons. ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... From an examination of Suetonius, Life of Claudius, chapter 25, it seems likely that Dio wrote "cities" (plural), referring to all the ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... quarterly meeting of magistrates, at which cases sent up from petty sessions are tried. The word is now always used in the plural form, sessions, as ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... the use of the word you as a singular pronoun that the popularising of what were once supreme distinctions is most markedly illustrated. This speaking of a single individual in the plural was originally an honour given only to the highest—was the reciprocal of the imperial "we" assumed by such. Yet now, by being applied to successively lower and lower classes, it has become all but universal. Only by one sect of ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... and adding it to A's word, take that to himself. If, however, A then detected an "e" in the middle and called out "estate" the word would be his again. These losses and reconquests form the chief fun of the game. An "s" at the end of a word, forming a plural, is not allowed. ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... limited. The natural rights of man were topics which had never been broached. Man had only natural wrongs. None ventured to doubt that sovereignty was heaven-born, anointed of God. The rights of the Netherlands were special, not general; plural, not singular; liberties, not liberty; "privileges," not maxims. They were practical, not theoretical; historical, not philosophical. Still, such as they were, they were facts, acquisitions. They had been purchased ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... attempts by the Upper House to introduce plural voting, the bill became law in January 1907, the peers insisting only upon the establishment of a fixed maximum number or numerus clausus, of non-hereditary peers, so as to prevent the resistance of the Upper Chamber from being overwhelmed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... cultivated—so much so, that it exports for the Ujiji and other distant markets. The Africans have no religion, unless Fetishism may be considered such. They use charms to keep off the evil eye, and believe in fortune-tellers. Their church is called Uganga, and the parson Mganga, the plural of which, priests, changes to Waganga. The prefixes, U, M, and Wa, are used uniformly throughout this land from Zanzibar, to denote respectively, U, country or place, M, an individual, and ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Bible. What he calls Intelligences the Scriptures call angels. Both are pure forms and incorporeal. Their rationality is indicated in the nineteenth Psalm, "The heavens declare the glory of God." That God rules the world through them is evident from a number of passages in Bible and Talmud. The plural number in "Let us make man in our image" (Gen. 1, 26), "Come, let us go down and confuse their speech" (ib. 11, 7) is explained by the Rabbis in the statement that "God never does anything without first looking at the celestial ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... battery, wasn't it?" asked Gordon, "and two huts is plural. I said houses of the people. I couldn't say two houses of the people. Just you send this as you get it. You are not an American consul at the present moment. You are an under-paid agent of a cable ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... unknown to them. Other peculiarities characteristic of the Altaic languages are the vocal harmony occurring in many of them, the inability to have more than one consonant in the beginning of a word, and the expression of the plural by a peculiar affix, the case terminations being the same in the plural as in the singular. The affinity between the different branches of the Altaic stem is thus founded mainly on analogy or resemblance in the construction of the languages, while the different tongues ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... to observe, that by the unavoidable idiom of our language the ideas of perception, of recollection, or of imagination, in the plural number signify the ideas belonging to perception, to recollection, or to imagination; whilst the idea of perception, of recollection, or of imagination, in the singular number is used for what is termed "a reflex idea of any of those operations ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... non-Brahmans, or, in the large cities, of Europeans and of Eurasians, besides still more specialised constituencies for the representation of land-holders, universities, commerce, and industries. There was no female suffrage, and no plural vote. No elector could vote both in a "general constituency" and in a "special" one. The qualifications laid down for the franchise were of a very modest character. Illiteracy was no bar, as to have made it so in a country ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... Queen's titles. In these letters the plural "we" and "our" are employed instead of "I" and "my," and the letters ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... children)—Ver. 151. The plural "liberos" is here used to signify the one son which Menedemus has. So in the Hecyra, l. 217, the same word is used to signify but one daughter. This was a common mode of expression in the times of ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... division, viz., interruption, contrast, rivalry, etc. Thus, with a singular noun, 'inter coenam hoc accidit,' i.e., this interrupted the supper. And so with two nouns, 'inter me et Brundusium Caesar est.' And so with a plural noun, 'hoc inter homines ambigitur,' i.e., man with man. 'Micat inter omnes Julium sidus,' i.e., in the rivalry of star against star. 'Inter tot annos unus (vir) inventus est,' i.e., though all those years, one by one, put in their claim, yet ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... domestic intelligence, although it was singularly oracular on "The State of Europe," and "Jeffersonian Democracy." A certain cheap assurance, a copy-book dogmatism, a colloquial familiarity, even in the impersonal plural, and a series of inaccuracies and blunders here and there, struck some old chord in my memory. I was mutely wondering where and when I had become personally familiar with rhetoric like that, when the door of the office ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... as excellent a companion over his bottle at the end of the chace—he was prodigal of his fortune, where his pleasures were concerned, and as those pleasures were chiefly social, his sporting companions and his mistresses (for these were also of the plural number) partook largely of ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... in some of these instances the Canons are spoken of in the plural, when the particular infraction which occasions their mention relates only to one of them. This shows they were collected into a code, if, indeed, that need be proved; for, in truth, that various Canons should exist, and be in force, and yet not be put together, is just ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... of what he did say at Turin, is proved by the fact that his actual speech at Turin, as printed by himself in his book, with an English Translation (pp. 558-561), though in substance identical with the draft-copy, differs in some particulars. In the actual speech the plural, "Your Royal Highnesses," is changed into the singular, "Your Royal Highness," for address to the Duke only, though the Duchess-mother was present; the parenthetical comparison of Morland to the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... friend," he said, and it was noticeable that he was prone to clip his words, and to use the singular, in lieu of the plural, when the latter would have been more conventional, "My dear friend, glad see you all. Hope ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... prayer which he has left us is manifestly intended primarily, not for secret worship, but for social worship. The pronouns of the "Lord's Prayer" are all in the plural number: "Our father who art in heaven;" "Give us this day our daily bread." For solitary prayer these phrases are ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... their college (the motive of denial recurs later); but enter him for the battle with the lion. This is surely a personification of the same obstructions as the elders themselves. In them we have, so to speak, before us the dragon (to be subdued) in a plural form. Analogous multiplying of the dragon is found, for example, in Stucken [in the astral myth]. Typical dragon fighters are Jason, Joshua, Samson, Indra; and their dragon enemies are multitudes like the armed men from ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... should ridicule my use of the phrase Christian regiments, I am too dull to understand. ("Who would not think," says he, "that it was one of Constantine's aide-de-camps that was speaking?") It may be that I am wrong in using the plural noun, and that there was only one such regiment,—that which carried the Labarum, or standard of the cross (Gibbon, ch. 20), to which so much efficacy was attributed in the war against Licinius. I have no time at present, nor any need for further inquiries ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... these words as I have indicated; but if he is referring to them in the Dative case, he sticks on a foolish and unnecessary E and spells them HAUSE, PFERDE, HUNDE. So, as an added E often signifies the plural, as the S does with us, the new student is likely to go on for a month making twins out of a Dative dog before he discovers his mistake; and on the other hand, many a new student who could ill afford loss, has bought and paid for two dogs and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Since the night when Claire had implored her not to poison her mind, she had never seen her merry, easy-going companion so aroused; but for the moment regret was swamped in curiosity. Ostensibly Claire was arguing in the plural, but in reality she was defending a definite man; Cecil was sure of it; saw her suspicion confirmed in the paling cheeks and distended eyes; heard it confirmed in the shaking voice. But who could the man be? Claire was the ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... was that of Ecclesia, translated Church. It will be worth our while to spend a few moments on the use of this name and its significance. We find mention in the New Testament of "the Church" and of "Churches." What is the relation between the singular term and the plural historically, and what did the distinction import? The sublime passages concerning the Church as the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ occur in the Epp. to the Colossians and Ephesians[3], which are not among the early Pauline ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... Malacca is a useful philological phenomenon. The verbs have mostly lost their inflections, and one form does for all moods, tenses, numbers, and persons. Eu vai, serves for "I go," "I went," or, "I will go." Adjectives, too, have been deprived of their feminine and plural terminations, so that the language is reduced to a marvellous simplicity, and, with the admixture of a few Malay words, becomes rather puzzling to one who has heard only ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... building ceased, its technical secrets became ritual secrets, though they must always have had symbolical meanings. Further, while we have record of only one oath—which does not mean that there was only one—signs, tokens, and words are nearly always spoken of in the plural; and if the secrets of a Fellowcraft were purely technical—which some of us do not believe—they were at least accompanied and protected by certain signs, tokens, and passwords. From this it is ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... very clear. I know the people I live among don't know everything. I grant you all that. But Woman Free! Woman Free! Madame Mafflu wants to know what liberty—or what liberties—singular or plural; do you take me?—ha! ha! ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... [Greek: aion], in the singular, denotes an age, a period of indefinite, but limited, duration, which may be either long or short. In the plural, the word denotes ages, or periods, that may be extended, and even vast, but still of ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... of the chief of these remedies being Proportional Representation, on which scarcely any of the Conservatives gave me any support. Some Tory expectations appear to have been founded on the approbation I had expressed of plural voting, under certain conditions: and it has been surmised that the suggestion of this sort made in one of the resolutions which Mr. Disraeli introduced into the House preparatory to his Reform ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... nations had also its peculiar name in the Council, distinct from the mere local designation by which it was commonly called. Thus the Caniengas had for their "Council name" the term Tehadirihoken. This is the plural form of the name of their leading chief, Tekarihoken. Opinions differ much among the Indians as to the meaning of this name. Cusick, the Tuscarora historian, defines it "a speech divided," and apparently ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... Wednesday evening to the club. I make some progress now at the language; I am teaching Belle, which clears and exercises myself. I am particularly taken with the finesse of the pronouns. The pronouns are all dual and plural, and the first person, both in the dual and plural, has a special exclusive and inclusive form. You can conceive what fine effects of precision and distinction can be reached in certain cases. Take Ruth, i. vv. 8 to 13, and imagine ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that is at the end of a line, a short vowel counts either as long or is dropped according to the exigencies of the metre. In the Hashw the u or i of the pronominal affix for the third person sing., masc., and the final u of the enlarged pronominal plural forms, humu and kumu, may be either short or long, according to the same exigencies. The end-vowel of the pronoun of the first person ana, I, is generally read short, although it is ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... that he never had had the audacity to tell the girl at the glove counter that he preferred bronze-green gloves, nor the boldness to show Maria Gerard his poems composed in her honor, in which he now always put the plural "amours," so as to make it rhyme with "toujours," which was an improvement. He never had dared to reply to the glance of the little maid on the second floor; and he was very wrong to be embarrassed, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... dug out of their trunks the old broad-brimmed hats and leather belts that they wear to North Beach fish fries, and mixed with the visitors. No damage was done beyond the employment of the wonderful plural "tenderfeet" in each of the scribe's stories. The Westerners mildly contemplated the skyscrapers as high as the third story, yawned at Broadway, hunched down in the big chairs in hotel corridors, and altogether looked ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry |
