spherics, staggers, statics, statistics, stays, strangles,
sundries, sweepings, tactics, thanks, tidings, trappings, vives, vitals,
wages,[147] withers, yellows_.

3. Plurals by composition: _backstairs, cocklestairs, firearms,[148]
headquarters, hotcockles, spatterdashes, self-affairs_. To these may be
added the Latin words, _aborigines, antipodes, antes, antoeci, amphiscii,
anthropophagi, antiscii, ascii, literati, fauces, regalia_, and _credenda_,
with the Italian _vermicelli_, and the French _belles-lettres_ and
_entremets_.

OBS. 29.--There are several nouns which are set down by some writers as
wanting the singular, and by others as having it. Of this class are the
following: _amends,[149] ancients, awns, bots, catacombs, chives, cloves,
cresses, dogsears, downs, dregs,[150] entrails, fetters, fireworks, greens,
gyves, hatches, intestines, lees,[151] lungs, malanders, mallows, moderns,
oats, orts, pleiads, premises, relics, remains, shackles, shambles,[152]
stilts, stairs, tares, vetches_. The fact is, that these words have, or
ought to have, the singular, as often as there is any occasion to use it;
and the same may, in general terms, be said of other nouns, respecting the
formation of _the plural_.[153] For where the idea of unity or plurality
comes clearly before the mind, we are very apt to shape the word
accordingly, without thinking much about the authorities we can quote for
it.

OBS. 30.--In general, where both numbers exist in common use, there is some
palpable oneness or individuality, to which the article _a_ or _an_ is
applicable; the nature of the species is found entire in every individual
of it; and a multiplication of the individuals gives rise to plurality in
the name. But the nature of a mass, or of an indefinite multitude taken
collectively, is not found in individuals as such; nor is the name, whether
singular, as _gold_, or plural, as _ashes_, so understood. Hence, though
every noun must be of one number or the other, there are many which have
little or no need of both. Thus we commonly speak of _wheat, barley, or
oats_, collectively; and very seldom find occasion for any other forms of
these words. But chafferers at the corn-market, in spite of Cobbett,[154]
will talk about _wheats_ and _barleys_, meaning different kinds[155] or
qualities; and a gardener, if he pleases, will tell of an _oat_, (as does
Milton, in his Lycidas,) meaning a single seed or plant. But, because
_wheat_ or _barley_