-nym for Words the Same in Sing. and Pl.?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Yes, but  I was taught that words like "deer," "sheep," and "Borg"
have a singular form but no plural, making them the precise antipodal opposite of the plurale tantum.

JL



"Peter A. McGraw" <pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Peter A. McGraw"

Subject: Re: -nym for Words the Same in Sing. and Pl.?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--On Thursday, July 07, 2005 5:23 PM -0400 "Baker, John"
wrote:

> There's no -nym, but what about plurale tantum? According to
> that surprisingly resourceful and frequently denounced source,
> Wikipedia, "A plurale tantum (plural pluralia tantum) is a noun that
> appears only in the plural and does not have a singular. Many languages
> have pluralia tantum, for example the English word "scissors" is such."
>
> How disappointing to realize that "plurale tantum" is not itself
> a plurale tantum.

It's perhaps equally disappointing that the words cited in the original
query, "deer" and "aircraft", are also not examples of a plurale tantum,
since they appear in both singular and plural--they just happen to have the
same form for both.

Peter Mc.

*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************


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