Notes and Queries/Series 7/Volume 7/Number 173/Pluralization
Replies.
PLURALIZATION. (7th S. vii. 142.)
Is not this a horrible coinage? However, Mr. Mount makes his paper highly interesting. But has he not, as nearly all do who alight upon a bright idea, grown a little dazzled with its proper brightness?
When we use the plural “brains,” it is in the sense of capacity, intelligence. A man with plenty of brains is otherwise to be described as a man of good parts. A surgeon may write on the brain, and study its anatomy, as being a single object, non-plural; but the vernacular will always have its “man of brains” for a clever fellow, and myself I cannot see why not. Literal views on such matters are always in danger of falling into literal nonsense. Language is a haphazard engine, that flashes a meaning, and leaves logic limping to rearward.
Now, what is there commendable in the French phrase, “Il s’est brûlé la cervelle d’un coup de pistolet”? The brain is left in the singular. So far so good. But “s’est brûlé” is absurd. He has not burnt anything, except gunpowder.
As to the line of Milton’s, I am pleased to see that Mr. Mount is of opinion that that foolish folk the modern editors and verbal critics would have altered it, or corrected it, to “circumstances.” They are always correcting what is not wrong, when often what is wrong they cannot see to be so. Still, although the word “circumstance” means an environment, it means a vast deal besides that. It means even a condition and state of affairs. You may correctly say, “A man is in good circumstances.” Young says:—
Who does the best his circumstance allows.
A man may speak of a remarkable circumstance in history. There it is merely an incident, and incidents may be plural or singular. There is no rule in all this to be laid down. The less rule the better. A good stylist must decide in each particular instance. A cultivated judgment can abolish rules.
Mr. Mount’s remark about the plural as applied to “politics,” “ethics,” &c., is very interesting, but I do not see that the slightest preference is to be given to languages that retain the singular in such cases. The Greek expresses the art of government by ἡ πολιτική, whilst τὰ πολιτικά is state affairs. Our “politics” represents the latter. When we talk of government, and the art of it, our word is far better than the Greek. Ἑ πολιτική is simply an adjective, τέχνη being understood; and then it only means the citizen-art, which is a painfully vague abstraction as against our phrase “government” or “the art of government.” The French follow the Greek precisely, and, of course, are as faulty as that. Dr. Johnson defines politics as “the science of government, the art of administering public affairs”; but his three examples show nothing of a science, only the art of state affairs.
Mr Mount’s remarks have for me a great value as observations on the use of the plural; but I could well wish away all that he says about the “nonsense……and of the useless and senseless signification in this general tendency to employ plurals, when possibly the singular might answer the same purpose.” It is not more foolish to say “even in my heart of hearts” than “in my heart of heart,” for there is no definite sense in the latter. If there be a choice the former is the better: the innermost heart, as it were, of all the hearts; the innermost shrine of all the shrines—adytum adytorum, sanctum sanctorum, holy of holies. It is only a mode by which we reach the superlative. But “heart of heart” reaches, if I may so say, nothing. If Shakspere could have said “heart of very heart,” I should have backed his phrase; as it is, I find it unmeaning, less expressive, and a hundredfold less vernacular than Keble’s “heart of hearts.” I have already expressed my high appreciation of Mr. Mount’s paper, as showing breadth and mastery. As a mass of observations it is really valuable; but the drifting into plurals which he condemns appears to me to lie at the root of right expression. Like much, or perhaps all, instructive wisdom, it runs dead contrary to logic. Logic never invented anything since the world began. Mother-wit, by breaking rules, finds laws.
Walthamstow.
Perhaps one of the forms of error most commonly in use is “I will summons him.”
In connexion with Mr. Mount’s interesting paper may be noted the habit of people in the lower classes of adding an s to surnames of one syllable, which is very prevalent; as also is the custom of reducing all Christian names to a single syllable. What is the cause? Is it the natural tendency of vulgar English to end its words with a hiss?
Hastings Corporation Reference Library.
Worcestershire folk are great sinners in this respect. For instance, old people have often complained to me that they can no longer eat “crussesses” (crusts), for lack of teeth. Not long ago ‘N. & Q.’ gave us some verses about “ghostesses sat upon postesses,” and other examples are to be found at 6th S. xii. 286. Choristers are fond of singing “Let saints on earth in concerts sing.”
Your correspondent asks for examples of ignorant singularization. I can supply him with one. A lady of my acquaintance entered a shop and asked to see some hose. The salesman, after exhibiting several pairs, called her attention to a particular stocking, with the remark, ‘There, madam; that’s fine a ho as you will find anywhere.”
Baltimore.
About six years ago, when arranging the transfer of a lease, in order to meet the wish of the owner of the property I proposed the insertion of a special clause in the agreement; but the tradesman then in possession of the lease declared he saw no need of any such claw.
Beside, besides.—Your correspondent Mr. Mount writes that, according to the rule, “If it be dry on all the earth beside” should be besides; i. e., that the word is apparently adverbial. Is not this a mistake? If it were intended to say that the earth was dry in addition to something else—e. g., the earth was hot and dry besides—the word would be adverbial, and correctly written besides. But is it not here really prepositional, the object beside which all the earth is dry being understood; i. e., the fleece? Etymologically, beside is no doubt “by the side,” some cases may be taken in its literal meaning; but this is not necessary to justify its use in this case, while besides would not have correctly conveyed the sense.