generally means that sort of grain in mass, if he will
mention a single kernel, he must call it a _grain of wheat_ or a
_barleycorn_. And these he may readily make plural, to specify any
particular number; as, _five grains of wheat_, or _three barleycorns_.

OBS. 31.--My chief concern is with general principles, but the illustration
of these requires many particular examples--even far more than I have room
to quote. The word _amends_ is represented by Murray and others, as being
singular as well as plural; but Webster's late dictionaries exhibit
_amend_ as singular, and _amends_ as plural, with definitions that
needlessly differ, though not much. I judge "_an amends_" to be bad
English; and prefer the regular singular, _an amend_. The word is of French
origin, and is sometimes written in English with a needless final _e_; as,
"But only to make a kind of honourable _amende_ to God."--_Rollin's Ancient
Hist._, Vol. ii, p. 24. The word _remains_ Dr. Webster puts down as plural
only, and yet uses it himself in the singular: "The creation of a Dictator,
even for a few months, would have buried every _remain_ of
freedom."--_Webster's Essays_, p. 70. There are also other authorities for
this usage, and also for some other nouns that are commonly thought to have
no singular; as, "But Duelling is unlawful and murderous, a _remain_ of the
ancient Gothic barbarity."--_Brown's Divinity_, p. 26. "I grieve with the
old, for so many additional inconveniences, more than their small _remain_
of life seemed destined to undergo."--POPE: _in Joh. Dict._ "A disjunctive
syllogism is one whose major _premise_ is disjunctive."--_Hedge's Logic_.
"Where should he have this gold? It is some poor fragment, some slender
_ort_ of his remainder."--SHAK.: _Timon of Athens_.

OBS. 32.--There are
several nouns which are usually alike in both numbers. Thus, _deer, folk,
fry, gentry, grouse, hose, neat, sheep, swine, vermin_, and _rest_, (i. e.
_the rest_, the others, the residue,) are regular singulars, but they are
used also as plurals, and that more frequently. Again, _alms, aloes,
bellows, means, news, odds, shambles_, and _species_, are proper plurals,
but most of them are oftener construed as singulars. _Folk_ and _fry_ are
collective nouns. _Folk_ means _people_; _a folk, a people_: as, "The ants
are _a people_ not strong;"--"The conies are but _a feeble
folk_."--_Prov._, xxx, 25, 26. "He laid his hands on a few sick _folk_, and
healed _them_."--_M