"Plural" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... priest, with all other churchmen, was exempt from the state taxes, although obliged to pay a proportion of the decimes,[Footnote: Decime, in the singular, was an extraordinary tax levied on ecclesiastical revenue for some object deemed important. Decimes, in the plural, was the tax paid annually by benefices. Dime, tithe (see Littre, Decime). It seems a question whether the proportion of the decimes paid by the parish priests was too large. See Revue des questions historiques, 1st July 1890, 102. Necker, De l'Administration, ii. 313.] or special tax laid ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... anticipation of a possible meeting with the French squadron there, when the disparity of force was less—say, eight to ten. This impression is confirmed by the "Plan of Attack" speaking of the junior "Admirals"—in the plural. There was but one such in the pursuit to the West Indies. It is quite possible, however, that the same order was re-issued upon the later occasion, re-copied without change of words. In any event, it confirms ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... is initiated into the mysteries of his faith here. The Mormon's religion is singular and his wives are plural. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... is one form of the Dakota "wake[']ya," the plural of which, "wake[']yapi," undoubtedly gave rise to the familiar "wick[']iup" of the plains, and also ...
— Omaha Dwellings, Furniture and Implements • James Owen Dorsey,
... explained, wearily, "I do wish you wouldn't speak of your vital organs in the plural. Anyone would imagine you were a sort of freak, like the two-headed boy at the circus. ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Even according to modern commentators (e.g., Alford), the word here translated "power" denotes not MIGHT, but GOVERNMENT, COURT, HIERARCHY; and in this sense it was always used by the ecclesiastical writers, whose conception is best rendered by our plural—"powers." See Delrio, Disquisitiones Magicae, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and I could take, toward accomplishing? Yet, even while I ask the question, I see something of what the answer must be. 'Christian homes opening to receive them!' That is a new thought to me, and in the plural number I do not see how just now, it could be done, but one Christian home,—I ought to be able to manage that. Mr. Ried, that is the way to begin it, you may depend. Indeed, I suppose you have tried it? The city is full of boys, and many of them are away down. Since we ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... is indicated more nearly correctly by this spelling than by "Apache," only a trained ear can distinguish the difference in sound when the average Yuman Indian utters it. Etymologically it comes from apa, "man," and the plural ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... among natural phenomena (or, in other words, the results of induction), when reduced to their simplest expression. It is, however, something to have advanced so far, as to see that the study of nature is the study of laws, not a law; of uniformities, in the plural number: that the different natural phenomena have their separate rules or modes of taking place, which, though much intermixed and entangled with one another, may, to a certain extent, be studied apart: that (to resume our former metaphor) the ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... Frazer's Pausaniae. See also Schomann, Griechische Alterthumer, vol. ii.; the volume on "Gottesdienstliche Altcrthumer'' in Hermann's Lehrbuch der griechischen Antiquitaten. On domestic altars and worship see Petersen, Hausgottesdienst der Griechen (Cassel, 1851). On plural dedications consult Maurer, De aribus graecorum pluribus deis in commune positis (Darmstadt, 1885). For Christian altars, reference is best made to the articles on the subject in the dictionaries of Christian and liturgical antiquities of Migne, Martigny, Smith and Cheetham, and Pugin, where practically ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... instances of ghost words in a communication to Notes and Queries (7th S., vii. 305). He says: "Possessors of Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary will do well to strike out the fictitious entry cietezour, cited from Bellenden's Chronicle in the plural cietezouris, which is merely a misreading of cietezanis (i.e. with Scottish z y), cieteyanis or citeyanis, Bellenden's regular word for citizens. One regrets to see this absurd mistake copied from Jamieson (unfortunately ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... to the Book of Foundations, Father Garcia de Toledo, her confessor at St. Joseph's Convent, is said to be responsible for the order to rewrite the "Life"; but in the Preface to the "Life" St. Teresa speaks of her "confessors" in the plural. Fathers Ibanez and Banez may be included in the number. See also ch. ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... behind her in her left hand—an attitude absolutely necessary to the situation—and replied: 'One is indicative mood, present tense, third person singular, verb active to say. Other is indicative mood, present tense, third person plural, verb ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... we speak of a king and of the king's image, and not of two kings. The power is not parted nor the glory divided. The power ruling over us is one, and the authority one, and so also the doxology ascribed by us is one and not plural; because the honor paid to the image passes over ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... 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 ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... at length; "I am a lonely woman, and my life has been broader for knowing you. I mean that you in the plural, for there have been a good many of you. Some have been successful, some have not; a few have become famous, just as you are doing. Some of them have been sent to me; some have come of their own accord. We have been close friends for a while, and then they have gone on their ways. ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... section quotes the various aspects under which Life appeared to the wise and foolish teachers of humanity. First comes Hafiz, whose well-known lines are quoted beginning with Shab-i-tarik o bim-i-mauj, etc. Hur is the plural of Ahwar, in full Ahwar el-Ayn, a maid whose eyes are intensely white where they should be white, and black elsewhere: hence our silly "Houries." Follows Umar-i-Khayyam, who spiritualized Tasawwof, or Sooffeism, even ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... XXXII, paragraph 26. The word "friend's" was changed to the plural "friends'" in the sentence: Had not this dangerous captain come up, Mary, no doubt,—so thought Miss Marrable,—would at last have complied with her FRIENDS' advice, and have accepted a marriage which was in all ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... Tyrwhitt's emendations of 'courtiers' and 'king,' as to the sense;—only it is not impossible that Shakspeare's dramatic language may allow of the word, 'brows' or 'faces' being understood after the word 'courtiers',' which might then remain in the genitive case plural. But the nominative plural makes excellent sense, and is sufficiently elegant, and sounds to my ear Shakspearian. What, however, is meant by 'our bloods no more obey the heavens?'—Dr. Johnson's assertion that 'bloods' signify 'countenances,' is, I think, ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... 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
... original of the Syriac word for the Signs of the Zodiac malwsh (plural of malwsh). The Syrians added to it an m, thus giving it ...
— The Babylonian Legends of the Creation • British Museum
... country town, conceiving that the word clause was in the plural number, would often talk of a claw in an act ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... An-nik'ki. Ilmarinen's sister. An'te-ro. Another name for Wipanen, or Antero Wipunen. Dus'ter-land. The Northland; Pimentola. Et'e-le'tar. A daugter of the South-wind. Fire-Child. A synonym of Panu. Frost. The English for Pakkanen. Hal'lap-yo'ra. A lake in Finland. Hal'ti-a (plural Haltiat). The Genius of Finnish mythology. Het'e-wa'ne. The Finnish name of the Pleiades. Hi'si (original Hiisi). The Evil Principle; also called Jutas, Lempo, and Piru. Mon'ja-tar. The daughter of the Pine-tree. Hor'na. ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... He was an excellent fox-hunter, and 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
... it goes" long enough to impress it on their memory, stop the ball; the children will probably say, "Now it stops, now it stops." When that is the case, move another ball to it, and then explain to the children the difference between singular and plural, desiring them to call out, "There they are, there they are;" and when they have done that as long as may be proper, set both balls moving, and it is likely they will call out, "There they go, there they go." I do not particularize ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... it was gracefully worded in the plural, but your pallid wife could not claim her share of it, and you should have realized the fact. And the reason she could not was that she had sacrificed her health in your service, in giving your children to you, and in losing ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... From an examination of Suetonius, Life of Claudius, chapter 25, it seems likely that Dio wrote "cities" (plural), referring ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... made in the house at Munster Court in reference to—well, to a nursery. A room to be baby's own she had called it. She had thus made herself understood, though she had not said the word which seemed to imply a plural number. "But you'll be down at ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... murderer," continued Brent, "I'm perhaps wrong. I might—and no doubt ought to—use the plural. Murderers! I believe that more than one of your rascally Corporation conspired to murder my cousin! And I'm going to have no blood-stained hypocrites processing after his coffin! You tell 'em to ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... writer again forgets apparently, that Shahrazad is speaking: she may, however, use the plural for the singular when ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... their gender. And thirdly, the verbs have been simplified in conjugation, weak preterites being often substituted for strong ones, and differential terminations largely lost. On the other hand, the plural of nouns is still distinguished from the singular by its termination in s, which is derived from the first declension of Anglo-Saxon nouns, not as is often asserted, from the Norman-French usage. In other words, all plurals have been assimilated to this the commonest model; just ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... word used for 'mother' is the same that is used for the division [tribe?] veve, with a plural sign ra veve. And it is not that a man's kindred are so called after his mother, but that his mother is called his kindred, as if she were the representative of the division to which he belongs; as if he were not the child of a particular woman, but of the whole ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... scholars catalogued their native literature under several heads, probably as an aid to the memory of the professional poets or story-tellers whose stock-in-trade it was, and to one of these divisions they gave the name Tainte, plural of Tain. By this term, which is most often followed by the genitive plural bo, "cows," they meant "a driving," or "a reaving," or even "a drove" or "herd" of cattle. It is only by extension of meaning ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... 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. Later, ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... of other States in the plural number; not one of them is a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Interest to do so and so, that they might consider in Time what they had to do, and the like: When he talk'd with any of the Whig Lords, for there was a Squadron of them left, that had a great sway yet in the Country, then he would talk of him, and Party and Queen, as one Knot, in the plural Number, most haughtily, thus: We are resolved to do so and so, and we must have none but ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... lunching with him in order to celebrate the triumph of "their" plan. Selwyn was amused at the plural. They went to a near-by club and remained for several hours talking of things of general interest, for Selwyn refused to discuss his victory after they had left the ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... to happen," the girl said, with an acceptance of the plural which deepened the intimacy of the situation, and which was not displeasing to Verrian when she added, "If our friend's vehicle holds out." Then she turned her face full upon him, with what affected him as austere resolution, in continuing, "But I can't let you suppose that you're conveying ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... entered 1 Why do the heathen nations rise, into plots and And in mad tumults join! confederacies against the reign of God Almighty. 2 Confederate kings vain plots (1) devise Against the Almighty's reign: His Royal Title they deny, (2) What word does Whom God appointed Christ; that plural number belong to? 3 Let us reject their (2) laws, they cry, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... and water by a triangle with the apex reversed; these two together united form the sign of the Macrocosm, the external symbol of Vau, V, Microprosopus. And He inherits the double qualities of the Father and the Mother, shown by the word "delights" ("Machemadim") being written in the plural. ...
— Hebrew Literature
... The plural of animate nouns is usually formed by adding the syllable "wog" to the singular; if the word ends in a vowel, only the letter "g" is added; and sometimes the syllables ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... Part I. 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 singular. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... [*—"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
... no plural form. deux mille 2000; deux milles means two miles. Mil is used in Christian era, l'an Mil huit ...
— The Aural System • Anonymous
... Cuba that which we call a cigar is called a tabaco (a tobacco) and when it is required to discriminate between the manufactured and unmanufactured article it is called tabaco torcido, or rolled tobacco. This, however, is only necessary when used in the plural. In Mexico a cigar is called a puro, and in Peru[62] and some of the other Spanish American countries it is called a cigarro puro, in contradistinction to the cigarro de papel, or cigarette. Cigarettes in Cuba are called cigarros, and their consumption is enormous. Strange as it may appear, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... caution you not to speak of my sisters when you write to me. I mean, do not use the word in the plural. Ellis Bell will not endure to be alluded to under any other appellation than the nom de plume. I committed a grand error in betraying his identity to you and Mr. Smith. It was inadvertent—the words, "we are three sisters" escaped me before I was aware. I regretted ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... No did, master doctor? Be not these the words of Christ, 'Accipite, manducate?' And do not these words, in the plural number, signify 'Take ye, eat ye;' and not 'Take thou, eat thou,' as you would suppose?"—Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. vii. p. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... the various aspects under which Life appeared to the wise and foolish teachers of humanity. First comes Hafiz, whose well-known lines are quoted beginning with Shab-i-trk o bm-i-mauj, etc. Hr is the plural of Ahwar, in full Ahwar el-Ayn, a maid whose eyes are intensely white where they should be white, and black elsewhere: hence our silly Houries. Follows Umar-i-Khayym, who spiritualized Tasawwof, or Sooffeism, even as the Soofis (Gnostics) spiritualized Moslem Puritanism. ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... plural as you can. They have every type under the sun. But," added the high military officer, "we use of course 'bullet rifles' (fusils a balle) not ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... in the singular and all nouns in the plural except those ending in s take an apostrophe and s to ...
— Punctuation - A Primer of Information about the Marks of Punctuation and - their Use Both Grammatically and Typographically • Frederick W. Hamilton
... task, though," he muttered, and, forced as he was to slacken his speed, he had the satisfaction of seeing, on glancing back along the gloomy passage, that the bears were also compelled to slacken their pace and climb over intervening rocks as he had done. And it was plural, for the second one had joined the first, and they were coming steadily on, their light coats showing with terrible plainness in the ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... had been prepared 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, ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... observe, Ansard, I have not made you a fellow with L50 in his pocket, setting out to turn it into L300 by a book of travels. I have avoided mention of Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, and all common watering-places; I have talked of physicians in the plural; in short, no one who reads that paragraph, but will suppose that you are a young man of rank and fortune, to whom money is no object, and who spends hundreds to cure that which might be effected by a little regularity, and a ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... the tiniest flush creeping up on her face, that neither of the others had the tact to see. "There were some friends of mine going on to Niagara, and so I had company all the way to Utica, and they set me down there." Sly Joe!—why did she use the plural number,—"friends," and "they"? Why will people, even those belonging to the most irreproachable classes of society, indulge in ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... cherry comes from the old English cheri, chiri, and that probably from the French cerise, that from the Latin cerasus, and that from the Greek kerasos. "Cheri or chiri was a corruption of cheris or chiris, the final s being mistaken for the plural inflection; the same mistake occurs in several other words, notably in pea as shortened from pease, Latin ...
— The Book of Pears and Plums • Edward Bartrum
... at Memphis and the ram at Thebes. That it was the whole species that was sacred, at one place or another, is shown by the penalties for killing any animal of the species, by the wholesale burial and even mummifying of every example, and by the plural form of {21} the names of the gods later connected with the animals, ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... promised to watch till morning. I'm not fit to be seen. If you'll wait till I put on a little of the aspect of a white man, I'll join you." He had been conscious of a feverish impatience to get back to the ladies, having carefully, even in his thoughts, employed the plural, and he had feared that they ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... a Bill to give old-age pensions to 600,000 people. It can thwart a Government in the minute details of its legislation; it cannot touch the whole vast business of finance. It can prevent the abolition of the plural voter; but it could not prevent the abolition of the police. It can refuse a Constitution to Ireland, but not, ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... call the Italian money "lira money," because the lire, which is worth about the same as the French franc, or twenty cents, is the common unit of Italian currency. "Lira" is the plural ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... or spirits is as improper as the term gods. Soul or Spirit signifies Deity and nothing else. 466:21 There is no finite soul nor spirit. Soul or Spirit means only one Mind, and cannot be rendered in the plural. Heathen mythology and Jewish 466:24 theology have perpetuated the fallacy that intelligence, soul, and life can be in matter; and idolatry and ritualism are the outcome of all man-made beliefs. The Science 466:27 ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... noted a fondness for substantives ending in -ma and -sis, such as georgema, diapauma, epithumema, zemioma, komodema, omilema; blapsis, loidoresis, paraggelsis, and others; also a use of substantives in the plural, which are commonly found only in the singular, maniai, atheotetes, phthonoi, phoboi, phuseis; also, a peculiar use of prepositions in composition, as in eneirgo, apoblapto, dianomotheteo, dieiretai, dieulabeisthai, and other words; also, a frequent occurrence of the ...
— Laws • Plato
... s-ma-i must be taken as a compound term for "starry heaven." The parallel passage in the Assyrian version (Tablet I, 5, 27) has the ideograph for star, with the plural sign as a variant. Literally, therefore, "The starry heaven (or "the stars in heaven") was there," etc. Langdon's note 2 on page 211 rests on an ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous
... distinguish it from the Great Pox or syphilis, the French disease, or Morbus Gallicus which attained the proportions of an epidemic in Europe about 1494. The expression "The Pox" in the older medical literature always refers to the Lues Venereal The word "pox" is the plural form of pock; the spelling "pox" is phonetic; "pocks" is the ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... 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
... it were, of each of them consisting of three consonants, while the vowels, which give flesh and life to the skeleton, vary according to the grammatical signification of the word. The relations of grammar are thus expressed for the most part by changes of vocalic sound, just as in English the plural of "man" is denoted by a change in the vowel. The verb is but imperfectly developed; it is, in fact, rather a noun than a verb, expressing relation rather than time. Compound words, moreover, are rare, the compounds of our European languages being replaced ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... the ward of the Washington Trust Company than in probing the heart of the lonely little girl. He gave the elegant Miss Thompson to understand clearly that Miss Adelle Clark was to have every advantage that money could buy, not merely music and art as extras, but horses,—he even put it in the plural,—a groom, and if she wanted it a private maid, which he was told was never permitted. Miss Thompson quickly gathered from his tone and his words that Miss Adelle Clark's expectations were such as to insure her the most careful consideration in every respect, ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... with Death, not with Posthumus Leonatus. In a note appended to this censure, referring to another passage from L. L. L., I averred that MR. COLLIER had corrupted it by chancing the singular verb dies into the plural die (this too done, under plea of editorial licence, without warning to the reader), and that such corruption had abstracted the true key to the right construction. To make good this last position, two things I must do first, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... referred to Shem alone—for, in that case, they would be an useless repetition, as in ver. 25 Canaan had been doomed to be a servant to his brethren—nor can they be referred to Shem and Japheth at the same time; the analogy of the [Hebrew: lmv] in the preceding verse, where the plural referred to the plurality represented by the one Shem, forbids this. If, then, the last clause can refer to Japheth only, the clause in which the dwelling in the tents of Shem is spoken of, must likewise be referred to Japheth. To these arguments ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... said the father, forgetting at this moment of genuine feeling the pompous plural in which he had hitherto spoken of himself. The Prince fondly kissed his child. The boy was about ten years of age, exquisitely handsome. Courage, not audacity, was imprinted on his ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... my head, how singular I act: Cut off my tail, and plural I appear. Cut off my head and tail—most curious fact, Although my middle's left, there's nothing there! What is my head cut off?—a sounding sea! What is my tail cut off?—a flowing river! Amid their mingling deaths I fearless play Parent of softest sounds, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... analogy with {VAXen}] Fanciful plural of {box} often encountered in the phrase 'Unix boxen', used to describe commodity {{Unix}} hardware. The connotation is that any two Unix ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... executive, to represent the eastern, middle, and southern states, somewhat as associated Roman emperors at times administered affairs in the different portions of an undivided empire. The Virginia plan had not stated whether its proposed executive was to be single or plural, because the Virginia delegates could not agree. Madison wished it to be single, to insure greater efficiency, but to Randolph and Mason a tyranny seemed to lurk in such an arrangement. When James Wilson and Charles Pinckney suggested that the executive ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... knew of their sin. With regard to Joseph it is probable that he warned his brethren, though Scripture does not say so. Or we may say that the sin was public with regard to his brethren, wherefore it is stated in the plural that he ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... and heaps of mushrooms over at the old Titchborne Ranch. They're thick all around the corral and in the pasture there. I am now what your English lord and master would call "a perfect seat" on Paddy, and every morning I ride over after my basketful of Agaricus Campestris—that ought to be in the plural, but I've forgotten how! We have them creamed on toast; we have them fried in butter; and we have them in soup—and such beauties! I'm going to try and can some for winter and spring use. But the finest part of the mushroom is the finding it. To ride ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... saint, Meshe," said Malka, so impressed that she admitted him to the equality of the second person plural. "If everybody knew as much Terah as you, the Messiah would soon be here. Here are five shillings. For five shillings you can get a basket of lemons in the Orange Market in Duke's Place, and if you sell them in the Lane ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... voice of antiquity ascribes the third gospel with the Acts of the Apostles to Luke. He first appears as the travelling companion of Paul when he leaves Troas for Macedonia (Acts 16:10); for the use of the first person plural—"we endeavored," "the Lord had called us," "we came," etc.—which occurs from that point of Paul's history and onward, with certain interruptions, through the remainder of the Acts of the Apostles, admits of no other natural and reasonable explanation. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... express itself. In the domestic birds described above, the male type of body appears in the absence of the ovarian secretion, and the female type in its presence. In man and the more highly organized mammals, we must use "secretions" in the plural, since a number of them, from different glands, act together in a "complex." Goodale, experimenting with birds, was unable to definitely decide whether the basis for sex was single or double in that material, though ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... is to myself rather, if I may be included in your plural "we," that I should apply the remark. I am not in need of any further wealth, if you like. I am rich enough already, to be sure. But you, Critobulus, I look upon as singularly poor, and at times, upon my soul, I feel a downright ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... can care much whether we did or didn't," retorted Vixen, shrouding her personality in a vague plural. "If you had cared you would have been with us. Sultan," meaning the chestnut "must have felt cruelly humiliated by being ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... mentionin'," said Maudie with growing irritation, "why you're makin' yourself so busy about my friends?" (Only strong resentment could have induced the plural.) ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... own forgiving, not a word of endearment; and we suspect the word madam had, when written, more blame in it than it now retains—and how do the words "my daughter Sophy and I" cut off the forlorn one from the family!—and the plural "persons" avoiding the individuality, the personality of her daughter was another deep cut into the very flesh of the lost one's heart. Now then comes the reproof, and the good man shines in the glory of goodness and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... and thumped and worked as you did clay, to get into a properly plastic condition of receptivity, so that the jokes, the songs, the dances, even the spindling little shafts of romance that you shot out into it, could be felt to dig in and take hold. It never occurred to her to think of it with a plural pronoun; it was "it" simply, an inchoate monster, which was, as the show progressed, delightfully loosening up, becoming good-humored, undiscriminating, stupidly infatuate; laughing at things no human being would consider funny, approving with a percussive ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... upon that rationalistic temper to which I have opposed the temper of pragmatism. Pragmatism is uncomfortable away from facts. Rationalism is comfortable only in the presence of abstractions. This pragmatist talk about truths in the plural, about their utility and satisfactoriness, about the success with which they 'work,' etc., suggests to the typical intellectualist mind a sort of coarse lame second-rate makeshift article of truth. Such truths are not real truth. Such tests are merely subjective. As against ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... 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 written ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... of our families are the best citizens of the Republic. Wife and children are the sources of patriotism, and conjugal and parental affection beget devotion to the country. The man who, undefiled with plural marriage, is surrounded in his single home with his wife and children has a stake in the country which inspires him with respect for its laws and courage for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... "swans" in the plural. The scene when I saw it, with its still and dim lake, under the dusky hills, was one of utter loneliness: there was one swan, and one only, stemming the water, and the pathetic loneliness of the region gave importance to the one companion of that swan, its own white ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... and allowed the two to pass on. Waring had gazed within, meanwhile, and discovered the plural wives, more or less good-looking, generally less; they did not seem unhappy, however, not so much as many a single one he had met in more luxurious homes, and he said to himself, 'Women of the lower class are much better ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... 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 ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... 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
... the other in the West, but there was but one empire. The two emperors, though they may have resided, one in Constantinople and the other in Italy, were considered as being but one person. In addressing one of them the word "you" (in the plural) was used, as if both were addressed at the same time. This was the first use of the pronoun of the second person in the plural for such a purpose; for throughout antiquity even kings and emperors were ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... we have tiding as the singular of tidings, a form which, from long disuse, would now appear strange to us. In the following extract from Florio's very amusing book of Dialogues, Second Frutes, 1591, he makes newes decidedly plural:— ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... fifteen hundred of them grouped together to cover a spot as large as a full stop or period used in punctuating an ordinary newspaper. This rough estimate applies to the globular and the egg-shaped bacteria, to which is given the name "coccus" (plural, cocci). The cane or rod shaped bacteria are rather larger plants. Fifteen hundred of these placed end to end would reach across the head of a pin. Because of the resemblance of these latter to a walking stick they have ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... and not "existences." Why do I say "existence", and not "existences"? Why, with a fine handsome plural ready to hand, do I wind you up and turn you off, so to speak, with a piffling little singular not fit for a half-starved newspaper fellow, let alone a fine, full-fledged, intellectual and well-read vegetarian and teetotaller who writes in the reviews? Eh? Why ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... early Church, and Justin names no authors for the "Recollections" he quotes from, only saying that they were composed "by his Apostles and their followers," clearly indicating that he was using some collective recollections of the Apostles and those who followed them. The word "Gospels," in the plural, is only once applied to these "Recollections;" "For the Apostles, in the 'Memoirs' composed by them, which are called Gospels." "The last expression [Greek: kaleitai euaggelai], as many scholars have declared, is a manifest interpolation. It is, in all probability, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... so long as the psychological way of thinking prevails; for a theory, psychologically considered, is a bare fact in the experience of the theorist, and the other facts of his experience are so many other momentary views, so many scant theories, to be immediately superseded by other "truths in the plural." Sensations and ideas are really distinguishable only by reference to what is assumed to lie without; of which external reality experience is always an effect (and in that capacity is called sensation) and often at the same time ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... as Chiuta, 'God in space and the rainbow sign across;' Mpambe, 'God Almighty' (or rather 'pre-excellent'); Mlezi, 'God the Sustainer,' and Mulungu, 'God who is spirit.' Mulungu God, 'not spirits or fetish.' 'You can't put the plural, as God is One,' say the natives. 'There are no idols called gods, and spirits are spirits of people who have died, not gods.' Idols are Zitunzi-zitunzi. 'Spirits are supposed to be with Mulungu.' God made the world and man. Our author ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... been done by the Expedition, it should always be understood that Dr. Kirk, Mr. Charles Livingstone, Mr. R. Thornton, and others composed it. In using the plural number they are meant, and I wish to bear testimony to the untiring zeal, energy, courage, and perseverance with which my companions laboured; undaunted by difficulties, dangers, or hard fare. It is my firm belief that, were their services required in any other capacity, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... 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 ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... express by the word litterateur. We unfortunately have no corresponding term in English: a man of letters is our awkward periphrasis in the singular, (too apt, as our jest books remind us, to suggest the postman;) whilst in the plural we resort to the Latin word literati. The school which professes to teach grammatica, professes, therefore, the culture of literature in the widest and most liberal extent, and is opposed generically ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... states. At the same time the powers granted to Congress have proved sufficient to bind the states together into a union that is more than a mere confederation. From 1776 to 1789 the United States were a confederation; after 1789 it was a federal nation. The passage from plural to singular was accomplished, although it took some people a good while to realize the fact. The German language has a neat way of distinguishing between a loose confederation and a federal union. It calls the ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... thing to be consider'd is, Virgil's mixing the Singular and Plural Numbers. This has a wonderful Effect, and is very diligently attended to by Virgil; but I believe never once thought of by Ovid, or any other Roman Writer in the Days ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... his disappointment very seriously, if quietly. Had he only known other girls, he might have made a safe recovery, for love's remedy is truly the homeopathic "similia similibus curantur," woman plural being the natural cure for woman singular. As the Russian in the "Last Word" says, "A woman can do anything with a man—provided there is no other woman." In Peter's case there was no other woman. What was worse, there seemed little ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... 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 only ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... in a wall in which a lamp is placed, and Masabih the plural of "a lamp", because traditions are compared to lamps, and this book is like that which containeth a lamp. Another reason is, that Masabih is the name of a book, and this book comprehends its contents' (Matthews's translation, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... hearts, and speak and act as if Christ was within governing their words and actions. They would have no formal prayers, no formal preaching, but sought to speak with each other as the Spirit prompted, soul to soul. They would not, when our plural pronoun "you" was still only plural, speak to one man as if he were two or more. They swore not at all; but their "Yea" and "Nay" were known to be more binding than the oaths of many of their persecutors. And as they would not go through the required form of swearing allegiance to the ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... (Podere is 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, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... distance solid pillars of sand. The Arab superstition invests these appearances with the supernatural, and the mysterious sand-column of the desert wandering in its burning solitude, is an evil spirit, a "Gin" ("genii" plural, of the Arabian Nights). I have frequently seen many such columns at the same time in the boundless desert, all travelling or waltzing in various directions at the wilful choice of each whirlwind: this vagrancy of character is an undoubted ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... will come as a challenge to drink; As a warrior's wound each transient sting. She leads to the Uppermost link by link; Exacts but vision, desires not vows. Above us the singular number to see; The plural warm round us; ourself in the thick, A dot or a stop: that is our task; Her lesson in figured arithmetic, For the letters of Life behind its mask; Her flower-like look under ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... do my very best; but I am afraid that I shall not be able to give you very many as good: and now, in your turn, you are to fulfil your promise, and tell me what virtue is in the universal; and do not make a singular into a plural, as the facetious say of those who break a thing, but deliver virtue to me whole and sound, and not broken into a number of pieces: I ...
— Meno • Plato
... improbable grammatical process to render pari tasthushas, as if the reading were paritasthiv{m}sas. The participial form tasthushas has no right to be anything but an accusative plural, or a genitive or ablative singular; let us have the authority for making a nominative plural of it, and treating pari as its prefix, and better authority than the mere dictum of ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... ellipse there are two points situated upon the line representing the major axis, and which are termed the foci when both are spoken of, and a focus when one only is referred to, foci simply being the plural of focus. These foci are equidistant from the centre of the ellipse, which is formed as follows: Two pins are driven in on the major axis to represent the foci A and B, Figure 75, and around these pins a loop of fine twine is passed; a pencil ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... course to their 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 Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... children, according to the order of their birth, as before mentioned. [Note 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 ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... reduplicated syllable recalls Hopi methods of forming their plural, but is not characteristic of them, and the word Totonteac has a Hopi sound. The supposed derivation of Tonto from Spanish tonto, "fool," is mentioned, elsewhere. The so-called Tonto Apache was probably an ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... "Doesn't the plural number cancel the egoism? But I really have something to tell you about myself. Two things, indeed, ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... vide Daniel, cf. Hdt. Why plural, "the trenches"? Is Xenophon obscure? His obscurity is mostly this: he expects his reader intelligently to ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... daughter, "gert" for great, "nather" for neither, "natteral" for natural, and gave his "r's" capital good exercise, turning them round well, throughout his entire discourse; and he cared very little for either singular or plural verbs. If he got the sense out he deemed it sufficient. He spoke in a conversational style, was more descriptive than argumentative, was homely, discreet, and neither too lachrymose nor too buoyant. This preacher, we have been told, was Mr. James Fearclough, of Hardhorn, near Blackpool, who ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... analysis, and formerly it was the contrary. Now, what presents itself to my eyes when I awaken is the planet; I have considerable trouble in finding again there the MOI which interested me formerly, and which I begin to' call YOU in the plural. It is charming, the planet, very interesting, very curious but rather backward, and as yet somewhat unpractical; I hope to pass into an oasis with better highways and possible to all. One needs so much money and resources in ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... derived, we are to examine by what rules they are governed, and how they are inflected through their various terminations. The terminations of the English are few, but those few have hitherto remained unregarded by the writers of our dictionaries. Our substantives are declined only by the plural termination, our adjectives admit no variation but in the degrees of comparison, and our verbs are conjugated by auxiliary words, and are only changed in the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... 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 ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... intercession. He 'hath desired to have you'—that is plural; 'I have prayed for thee'—that is singular. The man that was in the greatest danger was the man nearest to Christ's heart, and chiefly the object of Christ's intercession. So it is always—the tenderest of His words, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... once more the noticeable feature is that the middle character, although passing from the singular to the plural number, suffers no ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... said David. "It's much easier to understand the plural of girl. Girl in the first person ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... bottom of the mug to the sky, they call it in derision taking an observation. But though they have many characteristics in common, there is an individuality in each that distinguishes him from the rest. He stands out in bold relief—I by myself, I. He feels and appreciates his importance. He knows no plural. The word 'our' belongs to landsmen; 'my' is the sailor's phrase—my ship, my captain, my messmate, my watch on deck, 'my eyes!' 'you lubber, don't you know that's me?' I like to listen to their yarns and their jokes, and to hear them sing their simple ditties. The odd ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... extremely timid 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, for one morning, as he passed the butcher's shop, he saw ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... grammar, isn't it, that the subject of a sentence must be put in the nominative case? Let it kick and bite, and hang on to the desks all it wants to, in it goes and the door is slammed on it. You think so? What is the word "you?" Second person, plural number, objective case. Oh, no; the nominative form ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... mean door or gate. The plural form (Abwab) occurs in the next line, meaning that he displayed all manner of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... may perhaps have heard the world floe (plural floes) applied to floating sheet-ice, as it is to be found so applied extensively in Captain Parry's Journal of his Second Voyage; but it remains to be shown whether such a term existed in Shakspeare's time. I think it did not, as after diligent ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various
... however, their opinions changed, for there arrived from Nantes the commission, perfectly constituted, and wanting, as we have said, neither president, procureur du roi, secretary, nor even executioners. We use the plural, for ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... adjective belonging to "pillars," or a substantive in apposition with it. All the commentators seem to have passed the line without observation. I am almost afraid to suggest that we should read "pillars'" in the genitive plural, "proof" being taken in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... 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! There ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... reflex of her perfect honesty. After a little trifling talk, which is sure to come first when people are more than ordinarily glad to meet, I asked after her children. I forget how many there were of them, but they were then pretty far into the plural number. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... about his new suit, and listened, uneasy and ashamed, to a brief, penitential reference to "crazy" things he had done, as a "kid." He promised her never to drink again and incidentally told her that his real name was Edward Tenney. Suddenly they found the plural pronoun: we must do that; that doesn't interest us; Pa ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... as when we call Paul an apostle; the faculties of his power are set forth in an accompanying adjective, as El, great, awful, just, merciful, &c., or else all are understood at once by the use of El in the plural number, with a singular signification, an expression ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza
... disturbed. The Good Authority resulted from his friendship with Ben-Zayb, when the latter, in his two noisiest controversies, which he carried on for weeks and months in the columns of the newspapers about whether it was proper to wear a high hat, a derby, or a salakot, and whether the plural of caracter should be caracteres or caracteres, in order to strengthen his argument always came out with, "We have this on good authority," "We learn this from good authority," later letting it be known, for in Manila everything becomes known, that this Good Authority was no other ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... of persons or families are invariable in the plural, e.g. les Corneille et les Racine, except certain well-known historical names, chiefly of dynasties, e.g. les Csars, les Tudors, les Bourbons. But when used as common nouns to denote 'persons like' or 'works by' those named, ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... Mixteca, plural of Mixtecatl, an inhabitant of Mixtecapan, near the Pacific. The Huasteca, a nation of Maya lineage, lived ...
— Rig Veda Americanus - Sacred Songs Of The Ancient Mexicans, With A Gloss In Nahuatl • Various
... Khosrau (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 turns when ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... Romans seem not to have liked a too frequent repetition of this letter, for it is omitted often when a following syllable contains it; as pejero for perjero; and grammarians have noticed that the genitive plural of the future participle is of rare occurrence. In the colloquial and provincial Latin, r is often dulled into l. Thus on one of the walls at Pompeii a part of the first line of the Aeneid was found written, ...
— Latin Pronunciation - A Short Exposition of the Roman Method • Harry Thurston Peck
... superficial rearrangement of the inner self, can cure, and which requires a supernatural remedy. On the whole, the Latin races have leaned more towards the former way of looking upon evil, as made up of ills and sins in the plural, removable in detail; while the Germanic races have tended rather to think of Sin in the singular, and with a capital S, as of something ineradicably ingrained in our natural subjectivity, and never to be removed by any superficial ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... much content you with life, as with death! Philosophy will chill your best impulses and most generous enthusiasms,—it will make you over-cautious and doubtful of your friends,—it will cause you to be indifferent to women in the plural, but it will hand you over, a weak and helpless victim to the one woman,—when she comes,—as she is bound to come. There is no one so hopelessly insane as a philosopher in love! Love ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... talking about? Devils? Was that, then, how the public stigmatized blameless persons in search of peace? Devils? What, himself and—no, never Priscilla. She was clearly the harmless innocent creature, and he must be the other thing. But why plural? He could only suppose that he and Annalise together formed a sulphurous plural. He clung very hard to the rail. Who could have dreamed it would get so quickly into the papers? Who could have dreamed the news of it would call forth such blazing ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... and plural); Bumthang, Chhukha, Chirang, Daga, Gasa, Geylegphug, Ha, Lhuntshi, Mongar, Paro, Pemagatsel, Punakha, Samchi, Samdrup Jongkhar, Shemgang, Tashigang, Tashi Yangtse, Thimphu, Tongsa, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... is expressed in old Tahitian, and when quickly spoken is not easily understood by the modern listener. Many of the words, though found in the dictionary, are now obsolete, and the arrangement of others is changed. Oe and tana are never used now in place of the plural outou and tatou; but in old folk-lore it is the classical style of addressing the gods in the collective sense. Tahutahu means sorcery, and also to ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... form meaning "You two be strong," used by the Eskimos as a greeting. The singular of the same is Oksunae, and the plural ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... Mitchell, puffing gently. "It is that I suddenly recollected that I was alone with you, and my brains tell me that it is a waste of brains to use them in the sense of a plural noun with you. The word in your company,—my dear boy—only comes to me as a verb—as an active verb—and dear knows how often I have ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... bringing to Guy Landers a new Heaven and a new earth. Already the prosy old university town had begun to assume an atmosphere of home. The well-clipped campus, with its huge oaks and its limestone walks, had taken on the familiar possessive plural "our campus," and the solitary red squirrel which sported fearlessly in its midst had likewise become "our squirrel." The imposing, dignified college buildings had ceased to elicit open-mouthed observance, and among the student-body surnames had yielded precedence to Christian ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... might of gimlet and of screw. Grin at the window, Williams, all is vain; The carpenter will come and let thee out again. Contrast with him the countenance serene And sweet remonstrance of the junior dean; The plural number and the accents mild, The language of a parent to a child. With plaintive voice the worthy man doth state, We've not been very regular of late. It should more carefully its chapels keep, And not make noises to disturb our sleep By having suppers ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... the plural of Mare," replied the Pastor. "It is a woman, who, like the Varulv, changes to the form of a mare. It is the nightmare, which, as we all know, is dreadful enough. A woman who is a Mare (the final e is pronounced as a) is known by the hair growing together on her eyebrows. ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... be advisable for Congress to consider what, in the execution of the laws against polygamy, is to be the status of plural wives and their offspring. The propriety of Congress passing an enabling act authorizing the Territorial legislature of Utah to legitimize all children born prior to a time fixed in the act might be justified by its humanity to these innocent ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... 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.," ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... prepositions, as expressive of relations, being completely 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 ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... of a horde of nomadic invaders settling in a land of farmers, he had his images, ranging in elaboration from an uncut mazzebah or asherah, to a golden bull. He was plural by place and tribe and function. What did the prophetic movement do with his sacred powers? It identified his taboos ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... found one of the best safeguards to the Union. At the period of the formation of the Constitution the principle does not appear to have enjoyed much favor in the State governments. It existed but in two, and in one of these there was a plural executive. If we would search for the motives which operated upon the purely patriotic and enlightened assembly which framed the Constitution for the adoption of a provision so apparently repugnant to the leading democratic principle that the majority should govern, we must ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various |
